


Grayscale

by PlotlessWanderer



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Attempted Murder, Blood and Violence, But no actual suicide!, Child Neglect, Chronic Illness, Family, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Loss of Parent(s), Mental Health Issues, Siblings, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:42:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 52,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24032221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlotlessWanderer/pseuds/PlotlessWanderer
Summary: The first time Stile’s saw a dead man walking he was three and the man was his grandfather. They were visiting the family and, out of all the people in the room, his grandfather was the only one without color. When Stile’s pointed it out they had laughed uproariously, ruthlessly teasing his grandfather on his grey hair and wrinkles. When Stile’s tried to explain that all of the man was gray, his mother had shushed him.A week later the man was dead.(Stiles has never been the average child, much the dismay of his teachers. But he'd never thought anyone but his mother would ever know just how weird he actually was. But apparently interfering in attempted mass murders was not a good way to keep your crazy under cover. Who knew, right?)
Relationships: Stiles Stilinski & The Hale Pack
Comments: 175
Kudos: 548





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, I don't know what prompted this one. I have never watched the whole show and my memory of it is kind of spotty. This was started about three years ago? Maybe? But there's no harm in posting, so I will

Minding your own business is much harder to do when your business sucks ass. 

Theres only so many hours you can spend in an empty, musty house with blank walls and grimy windows before you look at the pistol in the beside drawer with contemplation rather than wariness. So! Sticking your nose into other peoples business. 

Seated on the bench across from PotHole Donuts, Stiles slurps his no longer frozen grape slushy and watches as two Hales leaving the shop with three massive boxes of pastries. 

He wishes he could get a donut. But the slushy was seventy-five cents verses $2 for a donut, so… budgeting. Yeah. 

Cora and Laura Hale, both sleek and beautiful and laughing as they slid into the car. Stile’s whips out the little notepad stolen from his father and writes down observations in Polish. Thank God for Grandma Stilinski and her obsessive desire to have at least one grandchild capable of speaking their families mother tongue. It had been a pain in the ass to learn but he could only be thankful now, since even if someone did take the pad they wouldn't be able to read it. 

Which was good. Very good. That way no one would know he was stalking the Hales.

He squinted blatantly across the street, rewarded when Cora looked back at him with a pinched expression. He waggled his fingers at her. 

Her hair was pulled into a high tail, ends coiling. Her face was red from the sunlight and slightly sweaty and her lips were dark red from her constant chewing. She snorted and waved sarcastically back before ducking into the backseat of the Hale family SUV number two.

Healthy. Colorful. The opposite of her father. 

Mathew was nearly colorless. His skin was grey, his hair was grey, his eyes were washed out and faded. A black and white character that had stumbled on the set of a technicolour production. 

Not long now, Stiles thought as he scribbled another note, until he’s dead.

The first time Stile’s saw a dead man walking he was three and the man was his grandfather. They were visiting the family and, out of all the people in the room, his grandfather was the only one without color. When Stile’s pointed it out they had laughed uproariously, ruthlessly teasing his grandfather on his grey hair and wrinkles. When Stile’s tried to explain that all of the man was gray, his mother had shushed him. 

A week later the man was dead. 

The next was a woman at church during a Christmas service, who was even grayer than his grandfather and died a night after seeing her.

By the time he was seven and he watched a colorless pedestrian get mowed down by a garbage truck he knew what was up. 

And so did Claudia. 

“Listen honey,” she said, pulling him into her lap as though he was two years younger and fifteen pounds lighter, ‘you can’t just tell people they're going to die.”

“But they are,” Stiles had pointed out with what he humbly considered iron clad logic. 

“Apparently,” his mother agreed unhappily. “But just walking up to strangers and telling them to get their affairs in order is cruel, kiddo. You know it is.”

Stiles hadn't replied beyond a shrug, and avoided her eyes by playing with her fingers. 

“And… you can’t advertise this, Stiles.”

That had gotten his attention as little else would. Not the demand for secrecy but the name. His mother had never called him by it, despite his constant whining on the subject. It had been their thing, their teasing little inside joke. He twisted to stare upwards and found her thin lipped and grim.

“Why?”

Claudia sat for several long, silent minutes, jaw twitching, eyes burning, before she squeezed him tighter and continued in a low whisper, breath hot against his ear. 

“We’re going to talk about this once. Only once, you understand me? And then we’ll never talk about it again with anyone, even each other. Got it?”

Stiles gripped her hand, swallowed heavily and nodded. 

“My mother met a man in Ireland during university. They had a fling, just a summer romance but she got pregnant. With me.”

“Grandpa isn't your dad?” Stiles was shocked. 

Claudia snorted a laugh and jostled him in her lap, rubbing her cheek roughly over his hair.

“Of course he is. Just not biologically.” With a deep breath and a drop in volume she continued. “That man grandma met? He wasn't actually a man. At least, not a human.”

Stiles brain spun uselessly for a long moment and his mother, thoughtful as always, gave him the time to process. 

“An alien?” He asked timidly.

“A faerie.” Her arms twined more securely around his torso, snugging him up against her warmth and slow beating heart. “Have you ever heard of a Dullahan?”

At first Stiles wasn't planning to do anything. What was he supposed to do? And, more importantly, he had promised. He’d sworn to his mom and the thought of breaking that promise had him heaving in the dirty toilet bowl for ages. 

But it was hard to watch them. Watch Talia Hale carting around a toddler who’s chubby hands were as colorless as her own. See Mr Hale in the grocery store with graying eyes. Nine people, by Stile’s count, were going to die within the month, all at once. 

He figured his mom would understand. Like… like a bomb threat or something. It was his civic duty to stop nine people from being killed. So there was his motivation, shaky but sturdy enough to withstand the gut clenching bouts of self doubt. Now all he needed was the method.

He had his notes. His surveillance hadn't turned up anything beyond a few bits of drama, like Laura Hale stealing weed from the cars of her classmates and replacing them with a variety of harmless herbs (oregano and dried parsley, so far, if Stile’s could trust his nose) and Derek Hale getting it on with his teacher. 

Who was really, really creepy. She was picture perfect pretty, definitely the hot teacher aesthetic from magazines Stiles of course knew nothing about. Her smile was warm and a little coy, her hands always brushing tenderly against Dereks. Which was how Stiles noticed the first hint of her weirdness in the first place. 

At first he thought her nails were just dirty, which was nasty and not what he would have expected from someone as polished as her. But closer scrutiny proved it was something else. Something like the gray creeping up the bodies of the Hales and spilling out from their eyes. 

It was a dull, rusty brown, caked into the beds of her nails and darkening the creases of her knuckles, the pads of her fingers. Like a person who had been digging in clay and only been able to brush the excess off, leaving the rest. 

Stile’s didn't know what it meant but it was obviously out of the ordinary. She had a connection to the Hale’s, secret though it was, and therefore there had to be a connection. 

So he followed and found a disturbing heaping of more weird. 

First was the old man. Her dad, probably, though Stile’s didn't dare get close enough to confirm after almost being caught by the woman twice. She was freakishly perceptive. The old guy was even stranger than Kate, with dirty red-brown all the way up to his elbows. More was crusted around his eyes and he peered like a particularly unappealing raccoon from the dark smears of it. 

They met in warehouses. Parks. At the edge of town. Sometimes with more people, men and a few women in sturdy dark clothes and with dirty hands. After the second time Stiles saw a flash of a gun through the binoculars borrowed from his dad, he’d decided to stop following because he was now pretty sure what the connection was. 

So. Kate Argent and her maybe dad and his squad of suspicious upscale hillbillies were going to kill the Hales. Okay. Cool. Stiles could work with that. It was probably a gang thing. The Hales had always been oddballs, so criminal enterprises wasn't too much of stretch. His dad dealt with stuff like this all the time. No biggie. 

Ha.

Right. 

So, new plan. Creepy Kate was too dangerous to follow so it was back to the Hale Watch. And he had a feeling whatever was gonna go down was going down at their house.

It took a full three days of hiking through the preserve, reading every trail guide and map he could get his hands on looking for high ground. All while lugging a twenty pound telescope his mother had bought for family star watching and then promptly stored in the attic two months later. 

It took forever and a whole heck of a lot of wrong turns and near panic attacks at being lost in the woods before he found the right spot. 

It wasn't perfect. First and foremost he was only able to see a quarter of the Hale house and a bit of their driveway. Second, it was on a jagged cliff and a bitch to get to. He twisted his ankle and jammed both wrists. Third, he was becoming increasingly sure that it would happen at night which meant sneaking out of the house after dark and walking ten miles with only a flashlight muted by a dishtowel to illuminate the way. 

Stiles had never felt more certain he was going die tragically by mountain/bear/alien-abduction than the first three hundred times a rustling in the bushes had him quivering in his sneakers. 

And then there was the fourth non-perfect point. 

Werewolves. 

Freaking werewolves. 

During an early evening of stalking made possible by his dad calling to say he wouldn't be home that night, Stiles had the privilege of seeing Mrs Hale strip in her front yard and turn into a wolf. Both of which were things he had never wanted or expected to witness. 

After going home and hiding in his moms empty closet under a blanket, eating a box of Twinkies in order to come to terms with this newest development, Stiles decided not to think about it. Not like it mattered, really. The Hales were still cool people who treated each other nice and he still cherished the vivid memory of Cora Hale shoving a fist fall of live worms down Jacksons pants in second grade.

So he watched. He investigated. He planned and built contingencies and turned the cliff top into his own little hideout complete with blankets and junk food and comic books. 

Almost two weeks later the Hales were gray as a film noir screen shot. 

That night, it happened. 

At first Stiles didn't know what was happening. The black figures walking around the house could have been Hales, since the whole lot of them kept hours nearly as wonky as Stiles’. But when more of them appeared and started dropping powder on the ground he realized it was finally happening. 

The cellphone he’d been playing minesweeper on was stolen, plucked from the purse of a drunk and disorderly when Stiles was visiting the station two nights back. He had three backups, all religiously charged during the day. With shaking hands he dialed a different number into all of them and waited, watching through the scope as Kate’s old guy paced leisurely in the driveway.

It took five minutes of repeated dialing before there was finally an answer, groggy and irritated.

“What the fuck do you want?”

For a moment Stile’s couldn't say a word. His tongue was stuck to his teeth, brain dead silent in a way it hadn't been since the weeks after his mom died. 

“Speak up or I’m going to hang up.”

“They're outside!” The words were wrenched painfully free and Stiles choked on them, breath coming in uneven, too quick pants. The hand not painfully clenched around the phone was shaking. “They have guns and they're outside and they're going to kill you!”

When the voice came again it was neither groggy nor irritated. It was cold.

“Who?”

“How should I know?” Stiles said hysterically. “Just call the police and don’t let them shoot you.”  
There was muffled voices, the words inaudible but the tone tight and urgent. There was the thump hiss of a phone being passed graceless from hand to hand and then a new voice, deeper but smoother. “Who is this?” 

“A concerned citizen,” Stiles whispered. There was no way anyone could hear him at the Hale house but watching the strangers was making his paranoia ramp up to about 11 million. 

There was a pause, more inaudible conversation. Then “Alright. Alright. Can you tell me how many there are? What they're doing?”

“I—“ His throat clicked and it took a few too many deep breaths to open it again. “I don’t know. At least six. They, uh, they all have guns and are putting dirt or something around the house. I-I don’t see Kate though.”

“Who?” The voice hissed.

“Some lady named Kate Argent. She and some old man have been… I guess you could say plotting?”

Then there was shooting. 

“Shit!” Stiles bobbled the phone, dropping it over the cliff. The crack of its landing was inconsequential against the distant pop of gunfire and the sudden flare of light as headlights and porch lights and what looked an awful lot like floodlights turned on at once. It blinded the eye pressed to the telescope so Stile’s wasted no time in switching to the other. 

Through the bleaching glare of the lights dark, half human figures darted through the edge of the forests, weaving between trees only to leap out and drag the shooters back with them. The eerily familiar form of Talia on four legs took a rifleman down in a brief spray of red. 

“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” Stiles chanted shrilly. It took four tries to dialed 911 and he only just remembered to raise his voice higher, force it into an approximation of a woman's before babbling out a plea for help. The hysteria, unfortunately, did not need to be faked. 

Stiles watched as cars roared squealing from the property. The old guy was braced on the bed of a truck, shooting what had to be an illegal firearm, considering how quickly it spat bullets. Two hunched shapes barreled into the side of the car in front, sending it flying out of sight into the trees. Smoke was billowing from somewhere in the house that Stile’s couldn't see. 

It felt like a year but from the first hail of gunfire to the last disappearing taillight it could only have been a few minutes, five tops. 

Hales raced from body to body(and they were bodies, oh God, people were dead), riffling through pockets and tossing firearms into a pile. Jordan Hale ran into view to scoop up a handful of bullets, only to race away again. 

The vomiting took Stiles by surprise. The first jerking retch sent him rocking face fist into the telescope, digging into his eye hard enough to white his vision. Then he was too busy puking every illicitly obtained Ding Dong and donut he’d had in the past year to bother with something as inconsequential as sight. 

By the time he could see and breath and wasn't in danger of expelling an internal organ, the Hale property was awash in flashing lights. The smoke was even heavier but the fire department seemed to have it well in hand. 

The Hales, a disturbingly thin number of them, were huddled by a trio of police cars, blankets draped over their shoulders. Cora, toddler Matheus, Jordan and Talia, with an old woman and two others. Talia was in an over sized t-shirt and Jordan was bare chested. 

None of them were gray. 

It was with a dull, floaty feeling that Stiles packed up the telescope, phones and comics in his pack pack. The blankets he carried in his arm, making the descent from his perch even harder. He fell once, shoulder slamming into a rock with an awful crack. He kept going. 

At the first pond he came across he waded knee deep. The blankets needed a good stomping to fully submerge, but the phones were easy to toss out into the center of the scummy water with a few quiet plops. Mosquito’s buzzed shrilly and followed his somewhat lighter flight for a good twenty yards. 

He… didn't really remember getting home. One minute was harsh breathing, blurry shapes and the all consuming need to run, and the next he was in bed, curled under blankets he didn't remember getting from his dads room. He lay panting, wrapped around BatBear with his face buried in tattered faux fur as he stared at the pitch black of his undercover sanctuary. 

The Hales were alive. Stiles had done the right thing, probably, without breaking the promise too bad. It was over. 

It was over. 

Why didn't he feel any better?


	2. Chapter 2

The next few days were busy. 

New crews came in from all over, from TV and newspapers and online news sources. Stiles watched from the safety of the couch in the station break room as FBI agents camped out in every available corner, sometimes outright booting officers from the desks. The sheriff was kept so busy he hadn't been home for two days, which showed in his crumpled uniform, grizzled jaw and glassy eyed sobriety. 

So after school Stiles was told to come to the station. Melissa, who was usually down to pick up whatever slack was left over by his dads frequent overtime, was pulling double shifts at the understaffed hospital and therefor unavailable. Stiles would have been fine at home. Being alone there was routine by now, if not optimal, but he didn't suggest it because things were just too interesting. 

Things were not going as Stiles had speculated they would. In fact, the only criminal enterprises being investigated were big time and kind of terrifying because apparently the one person Stiles had failed to factor in (due to her absence for most of it) was a Big Deal in the FBI.

Betsana Hale was a profiler of extremely high repute, internationally lauded. Stiles had only seen her three times before and not at all during the Hale Watch. She’d only come home the day before, for a week long stop over before heading out again. And everyone had decided that she was the real target. 

Betsana was doing nothing to dissuade them. 

Stiles was admittedly fascinated by her. She was kickass from her dandelion afro to her shitkicking boot heels. She wore purple-red lipstick, a sleek leather jacket and the kind of intelligence the crushed lesser lifeforms beneath the weight of it. 

Stiles had watched from his tucked away position on the floor beside the sole vending machine in the station as she swept through with hurricane force, taking over the records room, the sheriffs office. FBI minions followed behind her like well trained dobermans. 

She stayed for two days before blowing away, all the metaphorical meat stripped from the bones of the investigation and locked in her teeth. 

Stiles loved her. 

Peter Hale spent a great deal of time in the parking lot, acting as her doting chauffeur. Stiles caught the mans eyes once while he was watching them drive away one evening and grinned. He didn't know much about the guy but if someone like Betsana was willing to tolerate marriage to him, he had to be pretty awesome too. 

So far, however, even the goddess of the the FBI had not found anything out about him. As far as he could tell at least. And did that make him a little smug? Yeah, of course. 

And so, for the first two days, he thought everything was going to keep going smoothly. He was in the clear and would never have to think about it ever again. 

He was of course very wrong.

Stiles had a mutually beneficial arrangement with the cats behind the diner at the outskirts of town; when he had food he shared it and in return got cuddles. Or, scratches, an introductory course on how to treat infected wounds and the occasional ability to pat them gently between the ears.

The diner wasn't well liked by the locals; too dry, too dingy, just slightly too out of the way. But it was right off the highway, had three gas stations clumped around it and a parking lot big enough for eighteen wheelers so it did good business. It was also prime ground for getting kidnapped, Stiles was well aware of that, thank you, but he had taken possession of his mothers taser and mace after she died and so was well protected. And after seeing the Hale… situation, he took to carrying a silver hair pin and a clove of garlic. Just in case.

But he didn't like taking Scott with him on his border-diner excursions. Scott was the poster child for pervert napping. All sweet and doe eyed and with asthma that kept him from running as fast or screaming as loud as Stiles. Unfortunately Scott had taken to following Stiles everywhere. 

Which was cool, most of the time. More than cool because Scott was his non-blood bound bro for life. They would have been blood brothers if they hadn't chickened out when they tried to cement the relationship with a blood oath. They spent a good twenty minutes passing a knife back and forth before unanimously deciding there really wasn't any reason to stick themselves after all. They had promises and their manly pride to keep them connected after all. 

Still. Sometimes a bro, however awesome, needed to chill out on the buddy system. 

“That last time I chilled out and let you run off without me you saw people get murdered, Stiles,” was Scotts completely deadpan reply to that. 

So now Scott was sitting between the two diner dumpsters with he shirt pulled up over his nose and watching enviously as Stiles was mauled by a grungy calico. 

“I wish I could have a cat,” he said wistfully. 

“Same.”

“Or a dog.”

“Not same.” The calico hissed at him, though Stiles chose to interpret it as an approving hiss. “Dogs need to be house broken.”

And though it made him feel like a total bastard Stiles didn't want to deal with pee in the house again. During his mothers last months things had gotten weird in that area. 

“But they're mans best friend,” Scott mumbled from his makeshift mask. 

Stiles clenched a fist and shook it listlessly, attention still consumed with the cat. “Sexist assholes!”

“Dude, my mom would smack your butt for swearing.”

“Huh. Are you going to tell her?”It was an interesting idea. Stiles finally turned to squint at his friend. His hair was stuck to his forehead with sweat and his eyes were already starting to get red from close contact of the feline kind.

“Nooo.”

Stiles frowned. “Scotty. You suck at lying, for the millionth time. Leave the fibbing to me.”

“Its not like I actually tell her,” Scott said defensively. “Its just, I might have said a few bad words, is all. On accident.”

Oh. Shit. Stiles frowned harder and stood up, brushing the dust from his pants as he came to terms with being a bad influence. He was poisoning his best friends innocence. Shit.

“Sorry. I’ll try not to swear so much.”

“You don’t need to!” Scott waggled his fingers at the cat as they started to walk back to their bikes, parked at the back of the lot where pavement gave way to hard packed dirt and patches of dead grass. “I don’t care.”

“But your mom does.” And she might not let you see me anymore if she figures out where you're hearing it, Stiles thought. And that would be… well. Not good.

“Hey, isn't that that teacher? The one you said was creepy?”

Stiles turned around so fast his feet tangled in his sloppily tied laces and dropped him face first into the dirt. While Scott was fluttering over him in shocked worry, Stiles pushed up onto his elbows and scanned the parking lot. 

Kate Argent was seated in the bed of a fancy American made truck, talking sharp and angry to her father, dirty hands gesturing. He was leaning close, looking as though he was trying to shush her. 

Stiles leapt to his feet and snagged Scotts arm, dragging him back to the safety of the dumpsters at a run. 

“Shh, shhh!” He smacked a hand over Scotts mouth, muffling his too loud whispers. “Wait here, okay?”

Scott grabbed his wrist and jerked it down, eyes narrowed in a glare Stiles rarely had the opportunity to see. Scott usually came across as a pushover, but unbeknownst the common populace, he was twice as stubborn as Stiles. Just, way more selective in regards to what he was stubborn about.

“Not okay! You said they're murderers. I’m not letting you sneak off to spy again. We should go, right now and call your dad.”

Stiles froze. An unexpected pang made his stomach twitch unpleasantly so he bit his lip to distract from it. He wished he could just call his dad. But he had no proof and without proof there was no guarantee he would be believed and dad was already so worn down and fed up with Stiles in general there was no way he could risk it. Instead, he swallowed, straightened and looked arrogantly down his nose at Scott. 

“Well if you're too scared…”

Scott gave him an unimpressed look. “I am not scared. I’m not stupid either.”

Damnit. 

“Fine. Will you let me spy if you come with me?”

Scott gave it thought. A lot of thought. Like usual. By the time he stopped chewing on his lip and mulling it over Stiles was jittering in place so bad bystanders could be excused in thinking he needed to urgently visit the bathroom. 

“Okay. But no getting close.”

“Of course. I’m not stupid either.”

Stealthily sneaking past garbage bins and stacks of flattened cardboard boxes, hands clasped, they made it to the edge of the building and peered carefully around the corner.

Kate had jumped down off the truck bed and was pacing, hair flipping like a horses tail as she moved.

“….not my fault…. monsters, should… burned!”

Her father grabbed her arm as she passed and gave it a sharp jerk, eyes intense but not angry for all the suddenness of his movements. Stiles felt Scott flinch against his back and squeezed his hand. 

Kate looked at the ground, and even if Stiles couldn't see her face the hunch of her shoulders looked sad. Good, he thought. Bitch better be.

The conversation was too quiet now, between the two of them. As her father pulled her into a hug and rocked gently from side to side, Stiles looked beyond them into the bed of the truck. 

There were three steel lockboxes in the bed, which looked bolted down and had the sort of locks usually seen on vaults. There was a stack of canvas tarps rolled into tight tubes and tied closed with paracord. Something about them was off, wrong. 

“Scotty? Are those tarps dirty?”

“What? Um, no? I mean, they look pretty clean to me.”

Great. More weird eye stuff. 

But there was something wrong with those tarps. They looked like ash had been smeared over them, stained the edges. The longer he looked the more certain he was something had died on them. 

Or, knowing Kate and her whacked out dad, someone.

Stiles carefully pulled the shitty phone he’d stolen two days ago from his pocket and scrambled to find the camera app. Scott, good bro that he was, noticed and took over keeping an eye on the wannabe Manson family, leaning so far over Stile’s head he nearly took them both down. Eventually, Stiles managed to figure out the zoom and snapped a picture. 

Complete with digital shutter sound.

A split second before the sound finished being an absolute douche, Stiles had knocked them both out of sight. But he could already hear footsteps crunching closer. Crap Crap. Crap.

He shoved Scott behind a stack of boxes, gestured sharply for him to be quiet before darting back to the cat, who regarded him suspiciously when he skidded to a stop and starting snapping pictures. 

“Hey kid.”

Stiles did not need to pretend to be startled. Jerking to his feet, he whipped around to find Kate staring at the corner of the building, plummy red lips curved in an inquisitive smile. She was less than five feet from Scott, who was staring at Stiles from a white, white face. 

Lydia had once called him pugnacious. At that time he thought she was comparing him to a dog but a quick visit to the classrooms dictionary had set him straight. To this day he didn't know whether being compared to a dog was worse or better. 

Gathering up every scrap of attitude and aggression he could in the face of a woman who probably/definitely knew how to dispose of his pathetic little corpse should she find him out, Stiles lifted his chin and sneered. “What?”

She lifted a brow. “Now thats not nice. What are you doing back here by yourself?”

Think Jackson. Be a prick. Yeah, Stiles could handle this. Please God, let him be able to handle this.

With an explosive sigh he spread his arms and rolled his eyes. “What does it look like?” He waggled the phone for further emphasis. “Taking pictures? Duh?”

“Of what? The kitty?”

Oh, okay. That was actually a little helpful; Stiles never dealt well with being talked down to. His sneer slipped into something a little more genuine. “Whats it to you? If thats your cat I better call PETA on you for animal cruelty.”

Stiles could admit to a feeling of sweet satisfaction when that warm smile twitched just a biiiit out of shape. 

“This isn't a good place for little boys to play. Its dangerous.”

“Right. Thanks.”

“And I don’t think you were actually taking pictures of a cat.”

Stiles froze, fingers tightening on the phone. Kates eyes were done perfectly, makeup blended into a natural looking shadow that made her eyes even sharper and she looked like she could skin him with her gaze alone. 

Then Stiles found salvation, though it had definitely not been put there by any divine means. He huffed, turned away and shrugged, pointing a little reluctantly.

“Fine. Fine. My friends dared me to bring back a picture, so I will.”

He could feel the moment he won as her eyes traveled down to were he was pointing. Her whole body subtly recoiled and her smile dripped into outright disgust when she laid eyes on the used condom edging out from beneath a dumpster. Stiles carefully choked back the urge to smirk. “Problem?”

“Kid, just go home. And don’t…” She shuddered. “Don’t touch that.”

Stiles watched her walk away. When he could no longer hear the crunch of gravel he slumped with a winded sound and clutched the phone to his chest. Scott wheezed out a hysterical giggle.

“Dude!”

“Shh. Not yet.”

Tiptoeing to the corner of the building, Stiles leaned out just enough to see the taillight of the truck. Within a few minutes the engine growled to life and it drove sedately away leaving nothing but a lazily floating trail of dust. 

Stiles finally gave into his shaky legs and sat heavily on his butt. 

“Dude.” Plopping down to sit shoulder to shoulder, Scott stared blankly into the weed infested lot where their bikes were hidden. “Dude.”

“I know.” Stiles thumped his head into the cinderblocks behind them. 

“You bluffed a psycho.”

“I know.”

“That could have been really bad!”

“I know.”

The cat stalked past with a disdainful fling of her tail. A few minutes later a grasshopper went by in the opposite direction.

“Stiles?”

“Yeah?”

“Where did you get a phone?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scott is a good kid and a good bro. That is all


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for poor gun safety

After some waffling Stiles eventually sent the picture and the few words he’d overheard to Peter Hale’s number with a warning the two were back in town. He didn't wait for a reply before removing the battery. The next day on the way to school he tossed the phone in a drainage ditch. 

A few days later the local radio station disrupted their schedule of low budget commercials with cringey jingles for local businesses and the usual lineup of slightly out of date music for an interview with Betsana and Talia Hale. 

Sitting in the passenger seat of his dads cruiser while he collected pizza and soda for dinner, Stiles listened with rapt fascination as the two appealed to the community at large for information, and to the anonymous caller in particular to come forward. There was even a 10,000 dollar reward. 

“As a mother I ask you to please, please tell us everything you know. For the peace of mind and safety of my family,” Talia Hale tearfully implored. 

Stiles called bullshit on that act. Oh, he imagined she was very upset but having seen her tear out the guts and throat of multiple men he thought her upset was more likely to manifest as homicidal rage and not tears.

The cruiser rocked as his dad climbed back in, dropped the pizza box in Stile’s lap. It was almost too hot, a little steamy and he spread his hands over it because it felt nice. When his dad heard the tail end of the interview he winced tiredly. 

“I wish they would stop playing that. We’ve been fielding calls from all over the state all day.”

“Anything interesting?”

John snorted and started the engine, sparing a moment to ruffle Stile’s hair before pulling into the street. “Sure. Interesting, even entertaining for the first five calls. But also utter nonsense.”

“Sooo nothing useful?”

“Not a bit.”

The bag holding their orange soda was tucked next to his feet and Stiles tried not to look at the two six-packs inside. But even if he hadn't looked he would have known they were there; this pizza place was crummy and neither of them liked it very much. But it was right next to the liquor store and had become a frequent stop on the way home. The cashiers in both places knew the Stilinksi’s by name now.

“Did you arrest anyone? You know, that night?”

“Yeah. We got two, but they aren’t talking.” John snorted again and the wheel creaked beneath his hands. “And mysterious benefactors have supplied some damn good lawyers.”

That wasn't good. Smoothing his hand over hot, damp cardboard, Stiles wondered if Kate and her crew were going to just cut their losses. Somehow he doubted it. 

“Are they going to get out of jail?”

“I hope not, kiddo. But I’m not in a position to say.”

That evening his father drank four beers and a few shots of something who's label had peeled off before passing out on the couch. 

Taking the rest of the pizza up to his room, Stiles cracked the window and sat on his bed for a good think. But its was hard to keep his mind on Kate and the Hales. He didn't have enough information, didn't want anyone to find out he was mixed up in it at all. So far the Hales he’d seen around town (always together, always sharp eyed and nervous, ready to snap at the faintest hint of an unfriendly hand) were no longer grey. So did he really need to think about it at all anymore?

There were still eight beers in the fridge. For the thousandth time Stiles wondered whether sneaking them would let his brain stop. Fucking. Thinking.

With a groan he shoved his head into his pillow only to roll it off with a grimace. Yeah, he definitely needed to change his sheets. When had he washed them last, anyway? His dad probably needed the same as well. 

So, since insomnia was already nipping at his heels like a pack of bloodthirsty chihuahua’s, he went about stripping his and his dads beds, bundling the massive armful downstairs and tiptoeing into the laundry room. There were baskets overflowing with dirty laundry. Kitchen towels from a month ago had molded, dried completely, and were now well on their way to total decay. He poked what must have once been a sock but was now more reminiscent of a dead ferret with his toe and winced.

Thankfully he actually knew how to operate the washer. The last year or so had taught him a whole lot about self sufficiency, which just made him feel guiltier about not taking care of things since… well. Anyway. He didn't have the Hales to distract him anymore so he could pick up all the slack he’d been leaving behind. 

He found a mismatched set of sheets in the back of the linen cupboard that smelled musty but otherwise clean and remade his bed. An afghan from some relative or other was bundled in the back, yarn coming loose from brightly colored blocks and, since it was one of the few clean blankets left, he dragged it downstairs. 

His dad was lying limp and sweaty, uniform pants still on and wrinkled from being worn for three days straight. He needed a shave; had needed one for days, honestly, and there were five cans of beer empty and meticulously lined up on the coffee table. 

“Man, you really should be in bed,” Stiles mumbled, carefully dragging the blanket over his dad, trying and failing to keep it over his feet. “You’re too old to risk your spine like this, sheesh.”

The clock said it was 3:51 but Stiles couldn't remember the last time they did the whole daylight savings thing. And now that he was thinking about it some of the lightbulbs were dead. That was dangerous right? What about the smoke detectors? There was a law about that, right? Dad would know. It was important to have smoke detectors. 

A horrible snarl sliced through the silence like dropped glass and Stiles yelped, startling back into the couch and nearly falling on his dad. Who, of course, didn't so much as twitch. 

Something clattered on the front porch and Stiles lunged for the belt his father had left on the table, unsnapping the gun with twitching fingers. It was heavier than he remembered from his dads gun safety talks, cold and awkward, too big to fit his fingers around comfortably. Thumbing off the safety he hurried to the end of the couch, between his dad and the door and waited. 

Fuck, what if the Hales had figured out he was the one who’d called? Were they willing to kill to keep the whole werewolf thing a secret? And what the heck was he planning to use the gun for? Bullets had barely slowed the Hales before. 

Another clatter, a low growl and an explosion of sound. Chittering and yowls and thumping.   
Stiles found himself on the ground, jelly legged, with the gun sitting on the floor in his limp hands between shaking knees. He laughed shrilly. 

“Shit! Oh my God, holy shit, I’m so stupid.”

Berating himself he flicked the safety back on and tucked the gun back in its holster with even shakier hands then when he’d drawn it. Masterfully pretending that he hadn't almost had a panic attack he stomped to the front door and flung it open with a scowl at the ready. 

“Grievous, you obese butt-head!”

Thirty pounds if it was an ounce, the massive cat raised its head and squinted disdainfully through the light streaming through the door. The eyes of two raccoons glowed from the front lawn where they paced, defeated.

“Go home and defend that instead. Leave the poor local fauna alone, Jesus Christ.”

Grievous yawned with its whole body, the muffled jingle of its collar bell chiming with the motion. Molten yellow eyes glittered like spilled acid through motley brown fluff and whiskers, so long and thick they would have look at home on a civil war general, twitched. 

Grievous lived somewhere in the neighborhood and kept all the local dogs and small children in a state of constant terror. No one knew exactly who it belonged to, what sex it was or its name. Despite that, all the women in the neighborhood were weirdly fond of it and were an easy target for conning treats from. 

“I nearly shot you,” Stiles hissed accusingly and scoffed in offense when Grievous only turned away and plopped down on the top step. Stiles swore he could hear the wood slates groan under the weight. 

After a few long seconds of intense staring, the raccoons skulked away.

Standing in the doorway, still a little too nervous to take a full step onto the porch and staring at the broad shoulders of a cat, Stiles suddenly felt tired. Exhausted really. Slumping against the doorframe he scrubbed a hand through his hair and groaned. 

“Crap. Fine. Just stay there, do what you want.”

Shutting and locking the door he wandered back to the couch, dropping onto the floor to loll back against it. He was so tired. He was always so tired. 

His dad snored softly. The next door neighbors wind chimes sounded softly, briefly, and Grievous growled one more time. Now that his heart was finally back to a reasonable pace, Stiles sleepily thought that maybe having Grievous guarding the front steps wasn't so bad after all. At least someone was. 

Tucking head and shoulders beneath a corner of the afghan, Stiles dropped off. 

Stiles was determined to excel in his newly chosen field of housework. So far things had been going pretty smoothly, if you discounted the death of the convention toaster oven through grease fire and the wall mounted air freshener Incident that still clung to the bathroom walls like the ectoplasm of a thousand murdered orchids.

But those were simply learning experiences! Not defeat. Stiles would be the greatest fricken housekeeper in Beacon Hills by Christmas.

Shopping was a little more troublesome. He’d never payed much attention when his mom did it, preferring to leave her to her vegetable and fruit pinching while he went and drooled over cereal. And frozen dinners were not the healthiest long term option, were they? 

At least he knew what cleaning products to get, since the ones at home were all labeled and branded. 

The cart was groaning and listing heavily to the right, making him put all his attention on steering straight. At least, that should have been what he was doing. What he actually was doing was trying to keep it straight and moving while reading a list and mentally calculating how much was in the account of the card he’d liberated from his dads wallet.

He was so involved he didn't even think about slowing down when he careened out of the snack food isle. But slow down he did, abruptly and completely, amid a horrible crashing of metal on metal. 

Hurled forward from the force of the abrupt stop and slamming collarbone first into the cart handles, he drooped like a wilted, wheezing piece of spinach, frantically trying to get enough air to grovel. 

“I’m so fricking sorry, are you okay? I didn't mean to, oh crap, is that a dent? Shiii-shoot, I’m sorry, really, really sorry—“

“Never mind that, are you alright?” Warm hands braced his shoulder and cupped the side of his face, rough fingertips and soft palms and Stiles froze at the sensation, only to stop breathing entirely when he looked up and saw who exactly was touching him.

“Mrs Hale!” He squeaked past a knot of panic. Oh God, he had t boned Mrs Hales shopping cart.

One thick, arching brow lifted. “Do I know you?”

“Noooo, no no. No. Just, you're Cora’s mom, yeah? And you were on the radio and everyone talks about you guys and y’know, its kind of hard not to notice all that? I’m not, like, stalking you or anything” Anymore, he internally screamed, “and I am so sorry, are you okay?”

The brow had been joined by its sibling in its glorious ascent. The faded blue jean grey of her eyes flickered ever so slightly, a trick of the light or imagination. Or maybe something way more awful. 

“I think I should be asking you that.” 

Stiles, so focused on her face and the fact that he had literally committed a horrible social sin by thoughtlessly running someone down in the grocery store, had completely tuned out the hands still on his face. So when one swept up and brushed the knotted horror that was his hair off his face he startled badly enough slam a flailing elbow into the cart. While his very un-funny bone vibrated in his arm, he twitched away and pointed his eyes safely at the ground. 

She was wearing a long, pale grey and vibrant purple skirt that brushed the top of sturdy boots. It moved like liquid, shifting even with the subtle movement of breathing and Stiles swallowed hard, clenching his hands on the hem of his hoodie. 

“Really though, are you sure you’re alright? I saw you run into the cart, it looked like it hurt.”

Stiles shook his head mutely and wondered what the odds of a convenient meteor roaring down from the sky and immolating him was. Talia Hale was a werewolf, she’d survive and Stiles would be put out of his misery.   
“Alright then, if you're sure. Where are your parents?”

When salvation/damnation did not fall from the heavens, Stiles glanced back up and shrugged, trying to force his smile into something that would be charitably labeled as ‘sickly’. 

“Oh, y’know. Around.”

Crap. That was definitely a micro frown. Why it was there was anyones guess. Maybe it was finally occurring to her that she could have been saved a lot of aggravation if only the kid in front of her was under supervision. Desperate for an out, Stiles whipped around and looked for his list. 

The neon green post-it had fluttered away during the collision and tucked itself half under a shelf loaded with Triskets. Stiles squat walked over and plucked it free, listening hopefully for the sounds of departure. Sadly there was only silence. 

This was fine, he sternly told himself. No one knew what he had done, not even Mrs Hale. He was just one rude, clumsy and probably bug eyed child among many. Nothing suspicious about him, no sir. He was chill as the arctic, pure as snow. 

The arctic is melting, the pessimist that drove his brain pointed out meanly. And when was the last time you saw snow that wasn't mud streaked slush?

“Ah, I really am sorry though.” Scuffing his foot on the linoleum floor with a rubbery squeal he decided to change up his avoidance techniques and stared at the ceiling. He flicked a glance to find her still watching him and valiantly suppressed the urge to whistle in a carefree manner. That would look suspicious.

“No problem, I should have been looking where I was going anyway.” A smile, sharp white teeth framed with lips painted a Christmas and cinnamon red. “So. You go to school with Cora?”

“Yeah. We’re not friends or anything but she’s cool.” He flushed. What was small talk? How was it accomplished? Where was that space rock? “Uh, not that I stalk her either.”

“I believe you. If you did I’m sure I would know.”

You didn’t notice before, was the unhelpful thought that floated through Stiles head. He edged back to his cart. 

“It was nice to meet you, anyway.” Stiles said as perkily as he could manage. At least being in close proximity to Scotty he always had a good representation of unspoiled purity to pull from. “I’ll just get out of your way.”

“But we haven’t met yet.” Smiling wider, hooking one thumb over the strap of her probably couture purse, she moved closer. She smell good. Like what swimming in a clear lake felt like. “Whats your name?”

“Uh, Stiles? Stiles Stillinski.” After a pause that was way too long, he remembered to stick out a hand. 

Her palm was warm and dry and unbelievably soft against his. He stared at her pristine manicure, elegant fingers and pale skin and flushed a humiliated red when he noticed how awful his looked in comparison. Some nails over grown, others torn down to the quick, dirt ground beneath them and into the creases of his knuckles. He jerked it back and stuck it in his pocket. 

Abruptly he realized what he must look like. Skinny, several days late for a shower, hair several weeks without passing acknowledgment of a brush. Jeans he’d been wearing for six days straight. His mothers UCLA hoodie he wore every day that was now bleach spattered and stained with a hundred and one marks of his own ineptitude. 

His face was hot and his eyes burned and fuck. Shit. 

“Uh,” he paused to clear the wobble from his voice with a cough and scuttled back to the cart. “Uh, it was nice to meet you, Mrs Hale. Sorry for crashing into you, and stuff.”

Eyes down, jaw locked, he waved awkwardly and hustled down towards the produce section.

What was he doing? Taking care of the house? Yeah, right. He couldn’t even take care of himself. His mom would be so embarrassed. 

The misters came on with a sputter and Stiles stuck a hand under the spray, watching as the zucchini turned vibrantly greener as it was painted with water. It felt nice, so he stuck his other hand alongside the first.

He was fine. Sure, he was failing more often than succeeding, but he was perfectly fine. Might not be capable yet but he was getting there. Didn't he catch up on the backlog of laundry just yesterday? Finished picking out all his moms clothes and caching them in the back of the storage cupboard? And he had cleaned all the toilets. And made a Youtube playlist of easy recipes for this months menu. His shit was slowly falling in line.

He had saved an entire clan of werewolves from death all by himself. He got this.

Nodding decisively to himself, he smeared the collected water over his face and straightened. 

As he launched off towards the banana’s, he failed to notice blue-grey eyes watching him thoughtfully.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI, the cats full name (according to Stiles) is Grievous Bodily Harm


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grocery debacle take 2

The next week he was better prepared for his grocery excursion. His hoodie was washed, his cart carefully vetted for stability and the list was written on his arm this time. He wasn't losing it to anything short of amputation. F you, gravity!

Tonight he was going to attempt tuna casserole. According to CasserolePatrol99 on youtube it kept well, was healthy, quick and easy to make and simple to reheat. Onions and celery could be snuck in to slip a dash of healthiness past the picky eaters. Stiles was growing by leaps and bounds in the dicing and slicing department and was gunning for uniform size all around this time. 

IRL Fruit Ninja was his goal. It was a lofty ambition for sure, but he thought he had a chance. 

He was deliberating between yellow and white and purple onions when a cart rolled to a stop behind his.

“Stiles, right?”

Stiles knocked a pyramid of freshly stacked white onions out of their carton and fell backwards into the cart, sending it rocketing down the aisle and clipping the back of his head against the handle before hitting the linoleum. 

“Motherfuckingbitchshit!” There was an onion trapped under his back, trying valiantly and effectively to push its way to freedom through his kidney. He rolled half under the display shelves, groaning and cupping his skull.

“Oh my God, Stiles? Are you alright? Sweetie, move your hands, let me look.”

He would do neither of those things, he thought with a weird mixture of hysteria and sullenness. Everything hurt, but nothing more so than his pride. 

Mrs Hale (because who else could it be? Stiles obviously was paying a massive karmic debt for a past life, a debt with heavy interest.) plucked his hands effortlessly away. 

“I’m fine, I’m fine!” And now that she was making a scene about it, stroking his neck with one hand and threading gently through his hair with the other, Stiles realized it was true. He was fine. Great, he was just being a big baby about nothing. Well, embarrassment was such a constant companion these days he was becoming immune to its presence. 

Rocking upright, he shied away from her hands. God, this was the worst. Why was it always the grocery store? Was there a malicious ghost here that he had somehow offended? 

“I’m fine, sorry bout that. Just clumsy! You’d know, considering what happened last time.” He managed to get upright and several feet out of reach. “I’m pretty stupid, hah! And a wimp. But don’t worry, I’m good—“

“Stiles.”

Oooooh shit. That was… that was Mom Voice on steroids. That was the Arnold Swartzeneiger of Mom Voices. Holy crap. He stared slack jawed and startled into eye contact at her. 

Her hair was in a loose bun, tendrils escaping down her neck. A soft sweater the color of pumpkins sat over a jewel blue blouse, collar and cuffs peaking out. She looked like a magazine cover come to life. 

“I’m very, very sorry for startling you Stiles,” she said. “And you hit your head pretty hard, not to mention the ground. You probably aren’t feeling it yet because of the adrenaline.”

“Oh.” He blinked. “Yeah, uh. That makes sense. And it wasn't your fault, don’t apologize.”

One brow lifted and she crossed her arms, mouth quirking. “I will do whatever I damn well please, kiddo.”

Oh shit. At this point that should be his motto. He could write a whole book on how it applied to his life. Oh Shit: The Rock Opera, based on the autobiography by Stiles Stillinski. 

“I would never!” He sputtered, hand pressed to his chest like a swooning southern belle, “I mean, I’d never tell you what to do, but you don’t need to apologize. Though if you want to, feel free! You do you! Sway yo own way!”

He was now actively praying for an aneurysm to put him out of his misery. In the depths of his soul, he was weeping. Copiously. And continuously.

The quirk of her mouth twisted higher. Great. She was laughing at him. 

“I’ll do that.” She was still squatting there, on the scuffed and ancient linoleum, arms draped loosely over her knees. 

There was something eerie about the pose, something Stiles couldn’t quite pin down. Maybe it was the way her posture was still perfect, somehow. Or the way her center of gravity seemed different from everyone else. Or maybe it was simply that she was very much an adult and no adult of Stiles’ acquaintance would ever spend so long in such in awkward position without completely destroying their knees. 

Hunched down in the onion aisle, nearly eye to eye in their positions, Stiles slowly relaxed. No one else seemed to have realized something untoward had occurred. Scooting his butt back and slapping his palms out to brace behind him, he cocked his head and smiled. 

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this, Mrs Hale,” he said.

She grinned back and rested her cheek on her crossed arms. “I’m inclined to agree, kiddo.”

Stiles laughed. “I think this store has it out for me. Or maybe you do,” he tacked on with a waggle of eyebrows. Mrs Hale winced. 

“Despite appearances I assure I don’t. Are you really alright?”

“Oh yeah. For sure!” To prove it he rocked to his feet and extravagantly dusted off his butt. He tilted his head back as she stood smoothly and with no familiar joint crackling, grinning. 

“So how have you been, Stiles?” She asked and leaned down to pick up a few onions, dropping them back in the carton. Stiles hurried to help. 

“I’ve been good,” he said awkwardly, wondering why she was still loitering in the aisle and not moving on. He nudged his cart back a bit more, in case he was blocking the garlic, but she didn't even twitch. “Really, the only time I get in trouble is when I’m here, so….”

Not technically true. He’d been yelled at by the lunch lady yesterday for throwing boloney at Jackson and instead sending it frisbeeing over the lunch counter and into the back of her head. He hadn't seen the what the big problem was; she was a wearing cap. But, that was small beans compared to crashing into Talia Hale. 

From the sidelong glance it didn't seem she believed him anyway. 

“Its true! I’m currently the runner-up for sainthood. The pope has a bet placed on me, dark horse kind of thing, you know?” Bits of onion skin fluttered to the floor as he placed the last purplish one in its box. He poked it into a more upright position, sitting pretty on a throne formed from its own fellows. Hard core. “You might want to get in on the action. If I win you’ll clean up.”

“I don’t think that is how sainthood works,” Mrs Hale said. Stiles couldn’t help looking at her, smiling turning to something much softer and less painful than usual. No one had talked to him with such a nice, warm tone for a long time. 

“Well, I’m not Catholic, so…” He looked at the multitude of onions in front of him and remembered why he was here in the first place. Taking a quick glance at his arm and confirming that yes, he did indeed need four onions, he bit his lip and thought. 

He still didn't know what the difference was between them all. And Talia Hale might be a intimidating creature of the night, but she was also a Mom. And Moms usually knew all the important things about vegetables, right? And… she had been so nice. So weirdly, borderline suspiciously nice. 

Deciding to risk it, he swung around to face her and smiled as charmingly as he was able. 

“Hey, Mrs Hale?”

From where she was leaning with folded arms on the bar of the shopping cart, she lifted a brow and smiled. “Yes Stiles?”

“You know about vegetables right?”

A flicker of surprise, like someone’d brushed her with a feather. “Depends on what you mean.”

“Like, onions, for example. Kind of gross but super healthy, right? But theres like, fifty different kinds here. Whats the best one?”

He gestured extravagantly at the bins and waited. 

“That also depends on what you mean.” At his blank, deliberately expectant face, she laughed softly and came closer. “Alright. These yellow onions are a little sweeter. These white ones are good for all kinds of things, they’re usually the kind that are on burgers. And the purple ones are good for salad and fresh food. At least, I think so.”

Wow. That was way more than he thought he’d get. He stared at the onions with new appreciation.

“Neat. So, hypothetically, which ones would be good for a tuna casserole?”

He could feel her looking at him. It itched. Really lady, nothing to see here!

“I usually use the yellow for that.”

“Huh. Nice.” He reached for them and paused, risking another question while he still had someone to ask. “So are you supposed to squeeze these guys too?”

In an odd but ultimately informative turn of events, he spent the next hour shopping with the woman. Which was nice, really, he enjoyed it after deciding she wasn't going to sniff out his bullshit, but after checking out she was still lingering, which was not cool. 

Not cool. 

“So!” Clapping his hands once before swinging them up to clasp the back of his skull, he beamed at her. “Thanks for, you know, the help.”

“Of course. It was the least I could do.”

Stiles did not agree, of course. He was the one who should have done something to apologize for spazzing all over her day, but in the end he benefited a heck of a lot so he wasn't going to say that.

“So, anyway. Thanks. See you around, Mrs Hale.”

The hint sailed over her head like a paper plane. 

“Is someone coming to pick you up, then? I’ll wait with you.”

Shit.

“What? Pfft. Nah, no you don’t need to. And you have groceries.” An obscene mountain of grocery that Stiles had been trying not to obviously stare at. Like, who bought five gallons of milk at once? People in math problems, and Mrs Hales, apparently.“You should get that in the fridge.”

“Its no trouble,” she said serenely. 

Staring at one another with similar fake smiles (or at least Stiles assumed hers was fake because, really, who smiled that long without cramping?) they waited each other out. As wind swirled through the parking lot and rebounded off the front of the store, he could all but hear the sound of western high noon music playing in the distance.

After an awkwardly long silence, Stiles broke first. “Come on, its fine. I’m way old enough to wait by myself. Don’t you have to get home?”

“I can get home whenever I want, and even if I didn’t, I think making sure you were safe takes precedence. Don’t you?”

No, not really, Stiles thought despairingly. The lady was a stranger, really, no matter how helpful she was, and there was no reason she should feel obligated to do anything with him. It must be some mom instinct, he decided. 

“Look,” he started and then stalled. What was he going to say anyway? Buzz off, wolf lady, I have my own shit covered, thanks. He didn't actually want to die. “Look.”

“Yes?”

This lady was something else. If his eyebrows were as mobile as hers, they would be twitching. Out of frustration

“I came by myself.” Better to bite the bullet. Maybe that would make her leave. “And I’m going to walk home.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly and flicked across the front of the store, landing on his rusty red wagon tucked next to the motorized carousal elephant that hadn't actually worked in three years. His face felt hot, because he knew perfectly well how dorky he looked dragging a little red wagon behind him, thank you very much, and he didn't need that humiliation compounded by the oh so perfect Mrs Hale knowing his shame. 

“Why?”

Stiles grimaced. “I was trying to do something nice. For my dad, uh, because…. cause’.”

Crap. His eyes stung and his chest just… shrank. It felt like his lungs were slithering out of his ribs, wrapping around his heart and throat to choke him. What was he supposed to say? ‘You see, my mom just died and my dads acting like he’s going next and I’m trying to keep things going so hopefully he won’t give up completely’? Like he could say that without choking on it. Like he could think that without wanting to puke and cry and just fucking scream at the sky. 

His voice was shaky but he forced it out anyway. “He’s been working a lot and is super tired, so I thought I’d try and do that shopping.”

He didn't look at her. Didn't want to look at her. If she didn't know that his mom was dead in the dirt, probably being eaten by worms or leaking all over the coffin, he wasn't going to tell her. It wasn't her business. None of this was her business actually. 

“Thats very kind of you,” she said softly. 

But the anger was growing and he grit his teeth. It heated his insides, made the strangle hold on his lungs fall away and he scoffed. “Right. Yeah. So, theres no reason for you to worry. I’m just fine. Have a good day.”  
Shoving his cart forwards he began loading up his wagon. 

“Stiles…” He could feel her behind him, but didn't turn around. She might be nosy, but she’d go away eventually. “Stiles, how about I give you a ride home?”

“I’m not supposed to get in cars with strangers,” he said brightly, shoving a carton of cherry tomatoes between a package of cheese and a carton of eggs. 

For a moment she stayed quiet. And then, with a sigh, her hands brushed briskly through his hair, one long, short motion that was over before he even realized it was happening. 

“Okay. Thats a good rule to be following. You be careful getting home, okay?”

And damn. Shit. How was he supposed to stay mad at that? She was such a nice adult, she’d just taught how to pick out good onions and told him to make sure to cut the ends off of celery. He couldn't turn back around to look at her, but he nodded. “Yeah, sure, definitely.”

“Okay. I’ll see you around. Bye, Stiles.”

“Bye, Mrs Hale. And thanks. For, um, the help. And stuff.”

“Anytime.”

And this time when it went quiet again, it was because she was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am realizing that a lot, a LOT, of my writing involves food. So, fair warning for that. Its not going to stop.   
> Also, in case the mentions of youtube and fruit ninja are confusing, this isn't exactly following the canon timeframe. Its scooted forward a couple of years, so Stiles definitely has a whole host of playlists.   
> Sorry for the short chapter, hopefully they'll be a more consistent length from here on out.   
> Hope you enjoyed!


	5. Chapter 5

The tuna casserole turned out to be both a failure and a success. A success because it was edible but a failure because it smelled weird. Like, was hot tuna supposed to smell like burned cat food? He didn't know. 

But his dad ate it which was all that mattered. 

Just to be safe, he started going to the other grocery store within walking distance. It was further away and always smelled weirdly like fish, but there were no Hales there. 

The bills were harder than shopping and housecleaning and he was forced to hound his dad, following him around with a pen and a handful of opened envelopes. He usually managed to get them signed and stuck in the mail box by the next day and since he’d started his little campaign they hadn’t had a late fee even once. 

He was, indeed, the shit. 

So with things on the home-front more or less progressing smoothly, Stiles had more timed to be annoyed by school life. 

For the most part it wasn't much different from before. The teachers had stopped treating him like he was a second away from blowing them away with a monsoon of tears and were back to snapping at him. Mrs. Malton was especially unsympathetic and had taken to looming over him when he wouldn't stop tapping his feet. 

It wasn't his fault! English was boring, and so was she! If she just let him chew pencils like everyone else they’d be fine. But no, she was a not only a grammar Nazi, but a posture nut as well. Manners, Mister Stilinksi, learn them. 

Scott, bless his pure little soul, was more than sympathetic enough to make up for all the teachers and most of the student population too. 

“It sucks,” Scott said sadly and patted Stiles on the shoulder. 

“Heck yeah it does!” Stiles was proud of his blooming censoring capabilities. He barely swore in front of Scotty at all now. “She’s a witch, I swear. All her mojo probably comes from crushing the spirits of her students like… like ticks. Like pinching the head off ticks.”

“Ew,” Scott said. 

“Right? She’s awful.”

“She is.” 

And there was the reason Stiles would willingly bite off every finger on his hand for this guy. There was no greater friend than Scott.   
“But you’re still getting good grades.”

“Of course I am!” Stiles agreed and did not say it was only out of a spite. The woman seemed to think he was a mannerless delinquent in the making and so he made sure to ace each and every test, worksheet and essay. His work was pristine and he reveled in her pinched, scrunched snout expression every time he handed in a masterpiece.

“Mom wanted to know if you wanted to come for dinner tonight. We’re having tostada’s.”

Stiles perked up instantly. Mellisa was in general a pretty subpar chef, but she excelled at five dishes, one of which was tostadas. He was salivating already.

“Yeah, definitely! Dad won’t be by til way late tonight, so I’m clear.”

Once upon a time, Melissa would have been scrupulous in asking for permission from his mom or dad, would have laid out the time frame and whether or not anyone else would be there. 

These days she just asked Stiles. They both had learned it was easier that way.

It stung, sometimes, to realize that no one knew or cared where he was ninety percent of the time. Last year he would have given his arm for the freedom he had now, but he was realizing it was pretty sucky, all things considered. He was learning there were reasons that his mom never let him walk places alone at night, was learning there were reasons for all those boring promises of ‘Be back later!’ and ‘See you soon!’.

So it was nice, really, to hang out at Scotts. When they went off for an adventure he was always included in Melissa’s narrow eyed demand to ‘Be careful’. It was nice that she always tried to give him a ride home, whether from school or her own house. Not that he let her, most of the time. With the divorce finally final she was working more than ever and whiner he saw her she looked even more tired. 

And now that he knew all the reasons he’d never been allowed to wander around at night he also now knew how to avoid them. So there was no reason to make her stay up even longer playing chauffeur.

“Nice!” Scott beamed at him. “Wanna play Mario?”

Stiles snorted, because why play that when you could play Resi? but nodded. “Sure. I’m Luigi, though.”

“You’re always Luigi.” Shoving up from their personal plot of muddy grass, Scott grinned and offered a hand up. 

“Duh. Anyway, tell your mom I’ll be over.”

The bell rang, the recording scratchy like always, and they trotted unenthusiastically towards the gesturing playground monitors. As they were shuffled through the door into the hallway, he caught a glimpse of a brown pony tail and a familiar scowl aimed his way, but he lost sight before he could really see. In the end he shrugged and carried on. It wasn't like Cora Hale would be looking at him anyway. 

Scott had started taking the bus over the last six months. His moms shifts were getting longer and for the first time in his life she wasn't able to pick him up everyday. 

Stiles had been worried at first. Kids were bullied on buses, after all, and Scott would be alone since Stiles had started taking his bike to and from school. But so far things had gone pretty smooth. 

According to Scott, the bus driver was one step removed from an angel and didn't let anyone be mean to anyone else. Mostly, he said, he just spent the time looking out the window and spacing out. 

Even with multiple stops the bus still reached the McCall house before Stiles. There were a lot of uphill stretches and Stiles was not about to race up any of them, not unless the hounds of Hale were after his ass and maybe not even then. So he got back just after Melissa herself pulled in, the trunk of her Toyota popped open as she tried to thread a dozen bags of groceries through her fingers. 

Stiles let his bike fall into the lawn without a glance and rushed over. 

“Hey, Mrs McCall!”

Hair slipping out of her braid, she looked up and smiled. “Hey, kiddo.”

“Wow, this’s a lot,” Stiles noted as he grabbed bags from her hand and tucked a gallon of milk on his hip. “Planning a party?”

“Pfft. Hardly. I’m a week behind on grocery shopping.” She winced ruefully as she slammed the trunk and headed to the front door. “We’ve been living on Kraft mac’n’cheese.”

“Ew, gross. I like Boyardee. Get raviolis next time.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Open the door for me, squirt.”

Like the gentleman his mother had tried to raise, Stiles did and waited until Melissa was well out of the way before following and kicking it loudly shut. 

The McCall house was smaller than Stiles’ and the kitchen was older. The linoleum floor was stained and crackly in places, the cabinets had fancy brass pulls that were all pantina’ed to death and the stove had two dead burners. The gout between the tiles of the countertop were all sort of colors, now, but had probably been white once. 

Melissa had moved out of their old house only a few months after kicking out Mr. McCall and rented their current place. It was a ‘fixer-upper’ that she didn't have the time to fix, but it was cheap and most importantly, only a few blocks from their old places. Stiles had overheard her talking on the phone once, saying she could have gotten a better position and a nicer place outside of Beacon Hills, but that she couldn't bear to take Scott away from his hometown. And from Stiles. 

Honestly? Stiles had teared up a little at that. He was secure enough to admit it. Melissa was a Good Person, and he adored her. Scott was super lucky to not just have a mom, but to have a Melissa. 

Still. No matter how shabby the place was, Stiles preferred it over home. The kitchen might be nicer and the windows might be bigger, but even though they hadn’t been there long, Melissa and Scott had left their mark. Melissa perpetually bordering on death house plantes were scattered everywhere, there were pictures up on the walls and rag rugs on the floor, and a whole lot of neat knick knacks tucked into all the empty spots. Cluttered and colorful and nice.

“Scott said its tostada’s tonight,” Stiles said, dropping his armful of groceries on the counter by the microwave. “Was he lying again?”

Melissa was washing up at the sink, full on nurses decontamination up to her elbows, but she paused long enough to flicked soap bubbles at him. “He wasn't lying last time, he just got the days mixed up.”

“Uhuh. Not buying it. You’re just covering for him. All accomplish-y and sh-stuff.”

Melissa raised an eyebrow. “Uh huh. And ‘stuff’.”

Shit. Stiles back out the door hurriedly. “I’m going to go play Mario with Scott. Just, a very wholesome, polite game, nothing bad in it at all.”

“Right. You do that.”

“Okay! Call if you need any help, I can cut onions now!”

He booked it out of the kitchen and up the hallway to Scotts room. 

Shutting the door quickly behind him and collapsing against it with a sigh of relief, Stiles stared at Scott sitting on his messy bed, homework spread out around him but ignored in favor of a comic book. Scott blinked at him.

“Whats the matter?”

“Your mom is scary, dude. She could beat a man to death just by flexing her eyebrows, I swear.”

Scott snorted. “I’ll tell her you said so.”

“Please no. Don’t.”

Scott scrunched into a tighter curled up position and tried to hide his mouth behind the comic, but Stiles could still see the grin. “Fine. I won’t.”

“You dirty rotten liar. I can see right through you.”

Bounding onto the bed hard enough to set them both bouncing and then overbalancing, Stiles scrambling to amass all the pillows. Hunching over his hoard, he squinted through his hair at a giggling Scott and kicked him.

“Shut up, you’re awful.”

“No I’m not,” Scott denied serenely and scrapped all his scattered papers into a pile that he dumped on the floor. Across the room his ancient tube television was already set up, a familiar split screen already up. He tossed a controller at Stiles and scooted to the edge of the bed where he perched cross legged and prepared to play, waiting with very obviously applied patience for Stiles to get with the program. 

Which Stiles did. After constructing a throne of piles, that is. 

As usual, it was awesome. His visits always were. They played until Melissa called them out and then gathered in the living room with her, her on the couch and Scott and Stiles tucked up around the coffee table. Freshly showered in track pants and an enormous sweatshirt, her hair up in mysteriously constructed towel swirl, Melissa let them pick the channel. 

Half the time she would herd them to the table and make them eat like civilized human beings. Other times she would embraced sloth and veg out with them, eating like animals in their den. Stiles honestly loved both. 

“How was school?” Melissa asked.

“Good,” Scott said. “Mrs Malton yelled at Stiles again, though.”

“Dude!” Stiles gasped and elbowed him, trying to communicated his soul deep sense of betrayal through his eyes. Unfortunately Scott was too occupied with trying to get the perfect amount of hot sauce on his food and didn't notice. 

“Again?”

Stiles saw Melissa’s fierce frown and winced. “Yeah. Its not a problem though, I didn't do anything, I swear!”

“I know you didn’t. But she keeps singling you out. Why?”

“I don’t know,” Stiles said breezily at the same time his traitorous best friend said, “Because he can’t keep still.”

Stiles elbowed him again.

“Ow! But its true.” Scott finally looked away from his dinner long enough to shrug at his mom. “Stiles is always kicking the benched and tapping his pencil and stuff, and Mrs. Malton says he needs to stop it and behave himself.”

“Dude.”

Scott rolled his eyes. “Its true. Dude.”

The sneered at each other. 

Melissa, meanwhile, was frowning at the tv. Stiles kept a wary eye on her only for her to turn and meet it.

“Have you told your dad?”

“Pfft. Yeah, of course.” 

Of course not. Stiles, unlike some people, wasn't a tattle tale. 

Thankfully, it seemed to be enough to mollify the mom-ish concern and Melissa eased back. 

Stiles made his escape just before sunset. Melissa was easier to convince if he left before dark, and it was even easier this time, considering she had nodded off on the couch and was still too blurry eyed to really protest as he slithered his way to freedom. He waved from the sidewalk as Scott and his mother watched from the doorway.

As he peddled away under a cloud of pollen and dust, he stood on the peddles and coasted down the hill, thinking. 

He hated that every adult in his life seemed terminally sleep deprived now. He didn't know if it had always been that way or if he was only noticing now, bit he thought it was probably the latter. Melissa was juggling incompatible work hours, a son Stiles was continually getting into trouble and trying to get her ex to pay at least something. And his dad…

Well, his dad was perfectly understandable, really. He needed to work a lot, because the sheriff department was perpetually understaffed and he was the best deputy there. And he didn't usually sleep upstairs in his bed because it was full of bad memories, probably. Stiles didn't like going in his parents room anymore either, so it was okay that his dad slept on the couch most nights. And it was an uncomfortable couch, so drinking some beer mad sit easier for his dad to fall asleep. And adults were supposed to drink anyway. 

Really. It all made sense. Not a problem at all. 

As he finished his glide to the bottom of the hill and braked hard to keep form barreling through the little stop sign intersection, Stiles considered. He could turn left and head home, or he could turn right and…. not go home. 

Not like it mattered either way. His dad wasn’t going to be home that night and he’d already eaten at Melissa’s and Scotts, so he didn't need to go back for food. He’d cleaned up this morning before school and nothing needed to be done. 

It was only 7. And, baring werewolves, nothing would hurt him in the dark. Probably. 

Anyway, risk was the spice of life! And Stiles liked spicy things. Like curry. And danger. 

Turning right, he glided onward, towards adventure. 

He wound up at the boring park. It was in one of the nicer neighborhoods, the one where Jackson and Lydia lived, but the park was definitely more boring than the one in Scott and Stiles’ neighborhood.

The playground was full of short playground equipment and spongy mat stuff. The swings were the most exciting part of it, considering it didn't have the cool things he was used to, like monkey bars and carousels. So he plopped himself on one of them and listlessly swung away. 

Head tilted back, he watched the last of the light fade from the sky, making way for the murky stars. He wished they’d gotten around to using that telescope before his mom died. She knew all the stars, all the constellations, all the stories about them form the Greeks. He’d never let her finish any of those stories before he was running off to do something more interesting. He wished he’d let her finish. 

“Hey, kid. What are doing all alone, in a park, at night?”

Stiles didn't jump, because it took a while to surface from his moping so when it actually registered that that manly, deep voice was talking to him, he just draped backwards to look at the guy upside down, hanging half off the swing. 

“Getting ready to scream,” Stiles said truthfully, because he might be a risk taker but he wasn't about to be pervert-napped without a fight. 

The guy was mostly in shadow, like the creep he no doubt was, hands tucked into the pockets of fancy slacks, dress shirt a rich cherry-chocolate color and tie a blood red. His suit jacket with hanging through one crooked elbow. 

“A wise decision.”

“Yeah, I thought so too. Want to hear how loud I can get? Your choice of words, ‘Pervert’ or ‘Kidnapper’.”

“How about concerned citizen. It is more apt.” The guy just oozed unconcern and Stiles sighed.

“You know, you’re not really reassuring me here, dude. I totally will scream and ruin your life, no joke. My dads a deputy and everyone in the station likes me.”

“I’m sure they do. Which is why they will probably be justifiably upset when I call and tell them their favorite child is lurking in the park, an easy mark for any wandering monster prowling for prey.”

“Woah, hey now, lets not get ahead of ourselves!” Stiles said and lurched off the swing, stumbling and cursing as he wobbled several steps backwards by accident. He finally got all his limbs sorted out and trotted back to the swing, chains biting into his hands as he grabbed them and leaned between to grin as charmingly as possible at the guy. “You wouldn’t do that. Don’t be a narc.”

“That is quite possibly the least applicable insult that has ever been applied to me,” the guys said thoughtfully and rocked back on his heels just enough for the streetlight to peek through the trees and hit his face. 

“Crap.” Stiles drooped, let gravity take him down to drape belly first over the swing. Another Hale.

“Hmm, yes. I’ve had similar reactions to my presence before,” Peter Hale said with dripping amusement. 

“What’s with all you Hales, popping up all the time? Its not like real life needs jumpscares, you know. Its fucked enough without them.”

“Agreed. However, it is enjoyable and therefore I will continue.”

Grumbling, Stiles kicked into a little swing and prayed desperately for Peter Hale to take him and his likely-a-werewolf self away. 

“You haven’t answered my question by the way. What are you doing here?”

“Swinging,” Stiles said in the most ‘duh’ tone he could manage. He was not inclined to be polite to Peter the way he was to Talia. Probably because Peter exuded asshole while Talia was practically a goddess. 

“Hmm. No, I don’t think that is a sufficient answer.”

Stiles raised his head to glare at the man-maybe-wolf. He wasn't the tallest Hale, only an inch of something taller than Talia, but he was built wide. He looked like he could Stiles little skull between his fingers until it popped and it would no more taxing than crushing a grape. But that wasn't going to stop Stiles. 

“Why should I tell you anything? I don’t know you. You're a stranger. A creepy old man lurking in a park talking to a kid.”

“You’re very hung up on that,” Peter said and ambled closer, skirting the side of the swing. He took a hand from his pocket long enough to flick one metal support support pole with a ring that sound just a little wrong for what had caused it. Mans eyes were very blue as he cocked his head to look at Stiles. “Is that something you’re very concerned with?”

“Who isn't concerned with it?” Twisting to get his butt instead of his belly in the rubber sling seat, Stiles gazed up as Peter closed the distance to stand looking down at him. 

“And yet you aren’t screaming right now.”

Stiles sighed gustily and rolled his eyes. “Alright, fine, that was a bluff. Or, the first time wasn't but afterwards it was. I know,” he admitted grudgingly, side eyeing the man with resentment, “that you aren’t actually going to hurt me. Just annoy me. To death.”

“Huh.” Pivoting, Peter took a step back to stand beside Stiles rather than directly in front as he kicked off again. They both were looking blankly at the stars, now. “Thats rather surprising. You just said I’m a stranger. Why such trust?”

And Stiles couldn’t exactly say that he’d been stalking the guys family for the better part of month. That none of them seemed anything other than awesome and weirdly trustworthy. That he’d bet the better part of the rest of life that Betsana would kill her husband slowly if he ever did anything like that to anyone, much less a kid, and melt his body until it would never be found. 

Instead, he went with the only explainable reasoning he had and drawled, “Because I’m pretty sure Talia would slaughter you dead if you weren't at least that trustworthy.”

“Huh,” Peter said again. “True enough.”

Crickets were starting to chirp in the surround shrubbery and beneath the distant gazebo. They didn't sound very enthusiastic about it, but Stiles couldn't blame them. It wasn't a very nice night. Too muggy and pollen-y and dark. Through the trees of the park stretching in front of him he could see the glow of streetlights and the houses of the neighborhood. He wondered if Lydia was still up, doing something awesome. If she was with her parents. With her mom. 

He didn't care what Jackson was doing. 

“What are you doing out so late? Truthfully?” It was asked softer, more sincerely than the other questions and Stiles shrugged. 

“Nowhere else to be.”

“Surely you should be at home.”

Stiles grimaced. “I don’t want to go home.”

And that was the truth, wasn't it? He didn't want to go home. He never wanted to go home. It was always too quiet and empty there. Dust he just couldn't seem to sweep away sticking to corners, lightbulbs he couldn't reach going out one by one. His moms romcoms and Terminator blue ray’s hidden in the bottom drawer of the entertainment center and all the other things she’d left behind stuck in the attic, where he and his dad didn't want to ever go again. 

Shit. He snorted as obnoxiously as possible to disguise the fact that he was getting all blubbery for no reason and jumped to his feet. Tucking his own hands into his pockets and clenching them into fists, he raised his nose and grinned. 

“I mean, I’m not a baby. I can go wherever I want. Which is away from here, so, see you around, dude.”

Sauntering off he didn't expect the hand on his shoulder. Since he hadn't been expecting it, he was fully justified in snarling and digging his nails as hard as he could into Peters wrist as he jerked his hand off. “Don’t touch me!”

Peter surprisingly listened, and backed away, hands raised. Which might have been reassuring if Stiles hadn't finally caught sight of his hands. 

Rusty brownish red. Familiar, by now, and he knew what it meant. Not nearly as much as Kate, not even close, but he could see it there, under the crescents of Peters nails. He slunk back. 

“Stiles,” Peter said softly. “Are you afraid to go home?”

He froze, felt the blood draining from his face. His hands shook as he walked backwards, keeping his eyes on Peter. His heel tipped into a mole-hole, nearly toppling back on his butt, but when Peter jerked forward to catch him he turned the fall into an even faster backwards scuttle.

“I didn’t tell you my name,” he hissed, voice shaky. “How do you know my name?”

“Talia—“

“Never mind, I don’t care. I’m not bluffing this time; fuck off or I really will ruin your life. And don’t you dare follow me.” Far enough away to at leas feel like he had a head start he finally turned his back and sprinted to his bike, leaning against a barbecue grill, just as the sprinklers turned on. 

He heard Peter half heartedly call his name, which he shouldn't have known was his, as he biked away as fast as he could go. 

By the time he got home, soggy and shivering, the feeling of eyes on him was permanent as dried paint. And the feeling stayed all night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't go wandering around after dark, kids!  
> Comment if you are so inclined, and I hope you enjoyed


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles continues to mourn

“I know you're a traitor with bad taste,” Stiles said gently, “but even you have to admit that Batman is better than the stinking Hulk.”

“Marvel isn't that bad!” Scott protested, traitorously, “And they aren't like each other at all!”

“Oh yeah? They’re both named Bruce and they're both super genius and they're both orphans—“

“All the super heroes are orphans,” Scott muttered.

“—and they’re both all growly voiced. And you just said you like Hulk better than Batman!”

“I did not!” Scott snapped and shoved his scrawny elbow into Stiles side. “I just said I liked Hulk, not that he was better than Batman. You’re just jumping to conclusions.”

Wind knocked out of his sails, Stiles winced. “Oh. Sorry.”

“S’fine. I know words get all twisted up in your head.”

“Thanks buddy.” Stiles slung an arm around Scotts shoulder, ducking over to knock their heads lightly together and ignored the braying laughter from Jackson and his posse as they saw. The could fuck right off. He loved his bro and he didn't care who knew. 

Scott beamed at him, equally unembarrassed. 

They were sitting on the dividers that were supposed to block the back entrance of the school from the parking lot but were barely a hurdle, waiting for Scotts bus. It was a little late but they could see it behind two others, waiting to pull into place for loading. 

Stiles usually waited around until Scott was on the bus because why wouldn't he? He needed to squeeze as much bro-time out of the school day as possible. Otherwise, what was the point of even coming at all? Other than, you know, not getting yelled at by his dad, teachers and God for neglecting his education. 

At the other end of the parking lot was the queue of cars with all the parents and carpoolers. The bike rack was also over there, his one of the only ones in the line and obvious by the peeling, multi color paint and plethora of stickers. He’d also stuck cards in the wheel but was probably going to take them out since they were annoying. 

“Your mom going to be late?” Stiles asked and shook Scott briskly when he nodded. “So’s my dad. What're you going to do?”

“Homework. Mom says I need to get better grades on my math or she won’t buy me a skateboard next year.”

Stiles winced. “Harsh.”

“Yeah,” Scott agreed dejectedly. 

The bus rolled up and Scott trotted away with a wave. Stiles waited until it left again before standing up, dusting off his concrete-y butt and stretching the kinks from his spine with a few satisfying pops. Ah, he was going to be one crackly old dude when he grew up. 

He wandered over to the bike rack, hands locked together behind his head and feet kicking. It was hot even though it was now Fall, but this was California so he couldn't really complain. And if he biked fast enough the wind would cool him off. The leaves were starting to turn too. 

Fall was his moms favorite. She’d had scrapbooks full of dead leaves she’d collect on walks and glued to cards. 

He looked consideringly at the oak leaf by his foot. He could take it back home. It was still mostly green in the middle, the edge all crimped and brown. Would look nice on the refrigerator with that cat face magnet. 

He left it on the asphalt. 

Most of the students were gone, only a few tardy pickup people left in the roundabout. Stiles ignored them and went to his bike. 

He was tucking the lock into his pocket when he finally noticed the saggy state of his back wheel. Staring, blinking, it took a moment to compute. When it did he swore and dropped to ground to look at it.

It was empty. The top to the valve was off, the little plastic cap hanging dejectedly from its plastic leash. There was still a twig in the valve where it had been used to depress it and release the air. 

“Dicks,” Stiles muttered. This was where Jackson and crew had disappeared to earlier, then. He should have cared about that when it happened instead of ignoring it. Should have ratted them out to a teacher.

Prying the splinters of twig free he grumbled angrily and tossed them to the cracked sidewalk. Idiots. Stupid dickhead assholes. How could no one have noticed them doing this anyway?

“Stiles?”

Startling, Stiles looked over his shoulder and yeah, that was Mrs Hale. Complete with a bored looking Cora. 

Usually, it was Laura who did pickups in her snazzy Ford, and even then it was through the roundabout. Stiles had never seen her set foot on the middle school grounds and he really couldn't blame her. She’d probably cried tears of joy when she finally moved on to the high school. 

But here Talia Hale was and there was a Hale SUV in the parking lot, with its vanity plates and everything. With a quick look at Cora, Stiles rocked to his feet and grinned at Talia.

“Hey, Mrs Hale.”

“Hello Stiles. How are you?”

“I’m great.”

She looked that same. Different skirt but in the same style, the same lipstick and braid. Same steady look. Stiles beamed at her and refused to think about how rude he’d been when she didn't seem to be thinking of it either. 

“Yeah right.” Cora ruined the moment with a snort and pointed at the bike before Stiles could shift smoothly in front of it. “How’d that happen?”

“A mystery for the ages,” Stiles replied breezily and waved further commentary away. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Okay,” Cora agreed and didn't say anything else. 

Talia Hale was not so easily dissuaded. “Do you have another tire at home?”

Stiles opened his mouth to say yeah, of course and then shut again. “Huh. Dunno.”

One area of the house he hadn't bothered with was the garage and who knew what was going on out there. There might be a tire but then again their might not. 

“Doesn’t matter anyway, I just need to fill it up again.” He knew they had a pump at least. He and Scott had played with it last year, burying the nozzle beneath dirt and using it to make tiny, tiny dusty explosions. 

It had been a pretty uneventful summer vacation. 

“Hmm.” Mrs Hale looked at him, at the tire, at the splintered twig bits. 

“Annnnnyway, I’ve gotta get going. Places to be, you know, things to do. My schedule is packed, like, all lady crafts room packed.” Cora snorted a laugh and Stiles jerked the bike out of the stand. A card fluttered to the ground and started skidding merrily away in the breeze. “Nice to see you again Mrs Hale, the onions turned out good.”

“Onions?” Cora repeated quietly.

“See you around, Cora,” Stiles added on cheerily and prepared to scoot as quickly as the errant four of clubs still fluttering away. 

“Wait minute, please.”

Crap. Stiles tried not to droop to obviously. It still took a little while to scrub the grimace from his face and turn around. 

Talia was looking at Cora. “Go wait int eh car for me, okay?”

“Yeah, sure.” Cora gazed Stiles with mildly interested look but otherwise didn't do anything. Just jogged to the car and climbed in, slamming the door. 

“So. What’d you want to talk about, Mrs Hale?”

“You can call me Talia.”

Ha. No. Usually was Stiles was all sorts of down for that, but calling the wolf lady by her first name seemed a step to far in a direction he had no interest in going. He just smiled stiffly and nodded. Thankfully, she didn't push it.

“I heard you met my brother.”

Stiles barked a laugh. His hands were twisting around the handlebars, the old rubber grips dragging on his skin. “Yeah, you could call it that.”

Talia sighed. “I’m sorry he scared you. He didn't mean to.”

“Honestly, anyone would get scared of some creepy guy oozing out of the shadows, whether the guy meant it or not.” Crap. “I mean, nah, its cool, no problem, tell him I said hi!”

Talia’s mouth tipped in a badly suppressed smile as she sighed. “Stiles, its okay.”

“Yeah. Totally okay that I told you your brother was creepy. Thats all kinds of cool.”

“To be fair he is sort of creepy.”

Stiles gasped dramatically, slapping a hand over his mouth. “Mrs Hale!”

Smiling, Talia walked a little closer and perched on the bike rack. “He’s a big boy, he take some brutal honesty.”

“If you say so.” His own grin fading into something that felt gross and probably looked it too, Stiles went back to fiddling with the handlebars. “So, what did you need to talk about again?”

For a long and honestly super uncomfortable moment Talia just watched. Like, full on unblinking raptor stare. His skin crawled and he wriggled in place, sweat starting up even though it was actually starting to get cold. The wind felt like fingers dragging through his hair. 

“Stiles, I know I’m probably overstepping here but I have to ask if everything is okay. If you’re okay.” When Stiles didn't say anything she sighed again. It wasn't like the usual sighs directed at Stiles, not exasperated or annoyed or on the verge of a migraine. If anything, it sounded sort of sad. 

“Its not good that you're wandering around at night. Its dangerous. And Peter was concerned, and I am concerned, that you’re… not okay. If you're in trouble, any kind of trouble, I would be very happy to help you.”

She meant it, of course. It was obvious. So obvious it sort of hurt. 

Stiles looked at the oak tree across the parking lot, jaw clenching and hands gripping as he tried not to cry because, other than Melissa, no adult had really asked him that. Told him that, flat out. It was all, I’m so sorry, if there anything I can do? ‘Is there anything I can do’ was not an offer to help. It just wasn’t.

And the thing was, if it was anyone else offering now he might have just broken and taken it. Just run at them and asked them for all sorts of things. But this was Mrs Hale. This was a werewolf. He didn't know what would happen if any of them ever found out the Stiles knew, especially how much he knew. Didn't know if they would outright kill him to keep it all a secret. 

He would. He’d kill anyone who had that kind of power over his family, especially now that it was shrinking, so much smaller with every year. When it was now just him and his dad and Scotty and Melissa.

“My mom is dead,” he blurted. His eyes stung. His whole face and throat and chest hurt. “She’s… just dead and the house feels dead and I don’t like being there. So I sneak out, sometimes. I know I shouldn’t. I won’t do it anymore.”

He was staring so hard at the oak, with its leaves turning all the colors that made his mom smile, that had her spending more time twirling leaves between her fingers than raking when they did yard work, that he didn't realize Talia was moving until she was right in front of him. He flinched, jerked back only to catch up against his bike and then she was hugging him. 

She smelled like pine needles. Like water and dirt. Cool, sort of refreshing smells. But she was so warm. So unbelievably warm it made him feel like ice in comparison. 

“I’m sorry she’s gone, Stiles.”

“S’fine—“ Stiles started and he wanted to pull away, to leave before the shakes started. He could feel them coming, but she was so warm. 

“No. Its not. Its alright to miss her and its alright to cry. Some people are worth crying over.” 

A sound slipped out. High, sharp, and he choked it back. Everyone kept telling him not to cry. That his mom wouldn’t want him to cry. She wouldn't want that.

“She is,” he choked. “She is worth cryin—crying over.”

“I know,” Talia said and her arms were so tight and she was so warm and—

The tears were a given but the noise he made was surprising. He’d never made a sound like that. Even more surprising was the fact he’d grabbed her. Twisted his hands into her sweater and shoved close, head pressed so hard into her chest it had to hurt but she didn't even budge. 

He was crying like baby and he didn't care. Didn't even care that he was getting snot all over her pretty green sweater and that his bike had fallen on the ground. 

“I miss her,” he sobbed into Talia’s chest. 

He did miss her. He’d been missing her for years, but now he was missing even the things he’d hated, even the way she’d screamed at him that last year or looked through him like didn't exist, missed the fact that she was there even if her mind wasn't anymore. 

“I miss my dad,” he whimpered. “I miss my dad.”

“I’ll take you take him. He’s at work, right?”

Stiles nodded, smearing more of a mess. The shakes were starting to fade and the sobs were tapering off. It felt like it had been ages but it had probably been minutes. He still didn't let go. 

“Come on.” Talia didn’t let go of him either. Just sort of steered him along. How she didn't trip on him was a miracle. So was the fact she was willing to touch him at all, when he was all gross and snotty and sweaty and still crying. He saw Cora darting by out of the corner of his eye, carrying his bike one handed and tossing it in the back of the SUV with a clatter. 

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled as Talia all but hoisted him into the front seat. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

As she shut the door and walked around the front of the car towards her own, he felt something prodding his shoulder. Turning around he saw Cora, sitting next to an empty booster seat. She held out a package of tissues. “Here.”

“Thanks.”

The drive to the station was much shorter than biking but it was still long enough for the embarrassment to set in. And for Stiles to remember he shouldn't be bugging his dad at work, that the chief wasn't happy about Stiles showing up so much and had had a word with his dad about it. And that he was in a car with two werewolves.

“Thanks,” he mumbled as he oozed out the car when it pulled into the stations parking lot. “I’ll just, uh, head in now. You can go home, sorry for bugging you. And like, snotting all over you.”

“I have gotten much worse things on me,” Talia said and Stiles 100% believed her. Still, he waved his hands at her as she started to unbuckle.

“No, please, its fine. I can head in by myself.”

Talia looked at him sort of funny. Kind of like she didn’t… believe him.

Which, okay, he was lying. He was going to head home as soon as they were out of sight, but its not like she could tell. Stiles was a magnificent liar; his mom had always said there was nothing more insulting than a lazy liar. Like you being told you were too stupid to be worthy a sensible falsehood, as it were. 

“I’ll just help you with your bike, get up to the door,” Talia said and got out of the car. Stiles watched despairingly. 

“Don’t even try, dude,” Cora said and Stiles leaned back in the car, peering through gape between door and front seat to see her sitting with and elbow on the armrest and hand cupping her chin. She gazed back. “Mom’s not going to let anyone off that easy.”

“What if I told it it wasn't any of her business?” Stiles whispers, listening tot eh pop of lock in the trunk area. Cora smirked wider. 

“Then she would probably look at you like the dumb-ass you are.”

“Well, fuck me then,” Stiles said sourly. Reaching over the seat he snatched the packet of kleenex from the console and stuffed it in his pockets, glaring with faux menace at Cora. “I’m taking these as a balm for my suffering.”

“Knock yourself out, kid,” Cora said lazily. “Not like I need them.”

“I know,” Stiles replied, grinning. “I saw you blowing your nose into your shirt at recess.”

Cora snarled at him. “Shut up, you did not.”

“Did. To.” Stiles punctuated the conversation by slamming the door, smirking at her vague outline through the overly saturated window as he sauntered past. 

The good humor curled up and died like a worm on the sidewalk when he reached the back of the car, where Talia was waiting with his bike. It looked ridiculous in her hands, leaning against her hip. All the peeling paint and dents and bent playing cards sticking out of the spokes alike flags displaying his dumbassery. 

He avoided the looking at the still damp patches on her sweater and hurriedly repossessed his wheels with an admittedly stiff smile. 

“Thanks, Mrs Hale, I got it from here.”

“I’ll walk you in,” she said just like he knew she would. Because nothing was going right for him these days and possible ever again. 

Thankfully, help came lumbering up in the form of deputy Craig. 

“Stiles? What’cha doing here, kid?”

“Craig, hey!” Stiles beamed at the man, neck craning to look up at him. Talia was pretty tall, but didn't hold a patch on Craig. “My bike got busted so Mrs Hale drove me here. Is dad around?”

Craig hummed thoughtfully, bushy gray mustache rolling like a catapilar as he chewed his lip. “‘Fraid not, kiddo. Out on a call.”

Stiles shrugged. Honestly, it was pretty convenient that his dad wasn't there. He definitely didn't want Talia and all her were-wolfishness coming in contact with him. It was already bad enough she kept running into Stiles. “Thats okay, I’ll just hang out here for a while.”

“Might not be back for a while,” Craig warned and wiped his big hands on uniform pants before offering one to Talia. “Pleasure to see you again, Mrs Hale. Hows the family?”

“Very good, thank you for asking.”

Craig nodded. “No more trouble then?”

Talia laughed and shrugged. “Not so far.”

“Well, if you see anything suspicious or even feel a little uncomfortable, make sure to call. We’ll have a deputy out there faster then you can say ‘Punch it’.”

“Good one, big guy!” Stiles said and held out an expectant fist. Craig obligingly bumped it. 

“I try.” 

While Stiles stealthily wheeled his bike to the front of the station, leaning it against the wall, he listened to the two adults small talking. It seemed like Talia was going to buzz off, finally, and Stiles would not have to be confronted by the snot stains on her sweater and the fact that he’d pretty much had a mental breakdown all over her. 

“Thanks for bringing him over,” Craig said when Stiles trotted back to them. 

“It was no trouble. I was already picking up Cora.” Talia looked down at Stiles with a soft, gentle smile that made his skin crawl. He was completely sure he’d never be able to look her in the face after today. “You know, if you ever need a ride home form school, you can just tell Cora and she’ll make sure whoever picks her up knows to take you too.”

“Thanks,” Stiles said. He knew it was a little flat but there was no way he was going to take her up on that offer. Its sounded like a nice gesture, but also like a trap, and he wasn't going to fall for it. 

Talia looked at him for a moment longer and then smiled brightly, waling back to the SUV. “Goodbye, Stiles, deputy.”

“See you around Mrs Hale, take care of yourself.” Craig dropped a hand on Stiles head and they both waved.

As the car driven by a werewolf (a werewolf driving a car, shit, things were always so weird now) left the lot, Stiles sighed and drooped where he stood. 

“Hard day, kiddo?”

“Oh yeah, big man. Oh yeah.”

Craig sighed and ruffled his hair, huge hand almost the size of Stiles’ puny mortal skull. One twitch and he could probably crush it like an egg, gooey grey matter slopping everywhere. Stiles just leaned into the touch. 

“The sheriff won’t like you being ‘round, you know.”

Stiles hummed in a agreement. The man really wouldn't. The first few months he didn't seem to care, or at least never said anything. But he’d laid out in no uncertain terms that a sheriff department was no place for a kid and he wouldn't stand for it any longer. 

Stiles thought it might have to do with the fact that guy caught him shaking snacks out the vending machine. And that he wasn't curled up catatonic or crying in an out of the way corner anymore. 

Either way, if he didn't want his dad to get a citation or even just another warning, he had better make himself scarce. 

“I’ll just hang out on the sidewalk. He only has another two hours, right?”

Craig nodded, mustache twitching. “Yeah, ‘bout that. Unless the call drags on longer.”

“Great.” Which meant it probably would. That was just the way things went these days, rotten luck and bad timing and murderous psychopaths on every corner. His life was worse than a Hitchcockian fever dream. Rubbing his eyes hard enough to spark stars that were pretty but yeah, not worth the pain, Stiles groaned. “I’ll just leave the bike here and walk home.”

Craig hummed, hand still on Stiles head like a flesh and bone helmet. “Its getting kind of cold, windy. How about this. I’m going to be doing reports for the next few hours, so I wont be going out again. How about you wait in my rig?”

Stiles leaned forward. And further forward, because the guy had a gut, not gonna lie, and looked at the car in question. It certainly looked like a better option than hiking it when he felt half dead with exhaustion. Who knew emotions were so fucking draining?

“You sure?”

“Course I am. Just duck down if you see the Sheriff, yeah?”

“Oh yeah.”

And so Stiles spent the next three hours hunkered down in the passenger seat of the cruiser. It only took him a quarter of that to fall asleep. 

By the time his dad rolled up and scraped him out and into his own cruiser, Stiles was prepared to forget the day entirely. And later, as he dumped cans of soup into a pot, he almost succeeded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, the boy gets a good, solid hug!  
> Listen. No matter what I do, no matter how vigilant I am, I always, always write Scott as Scoot. Always. That is literally 99% of my editing. Do you have any idea how frustrating that is?!  
> Anyway, Scoot continues to be a Good Friend  
> Comment if inclined!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More mourning and mental instability

Standing on the creaking, lopsided top rung of the ladder, Stiles peered into the depths of the attic with narrowed eyes, hands clenched around the splintered wood of the open trap door. 

Over the past few months, since Stiles had dragged up the last few boxes of his mothers miscellaneous leave-behinds, the spiders had taken over. Cowebs so saturated with dust they were cob-walls blotted out what little light came through the tiny slit windows at either end of the attic. Just the act of breathing had little swirls of said dust puffing up in front of his face and making the cobwebs sway. 

Stiles rocked on the balls of his feet, the dangerous groaning of the ladder enough of a distraction that he didn't just give in and chicken out. He really didn't want to be up there, didn't want to go any further. Definitely didn't want to dig through all the things that had broken his heart to pack up in the first place. 

But there really was no other place to go. His mom had been bats hit crazy the last few years of her life, sure, but Stiles was starting to think there was more to her paranoia than any of them would have thought. She had, after all, talked about monsters living in the woods, spent nights wandering the house shaking and muttering and gripping her hair, eyes rolling as she begged his dad to stop the howling, stop the screaming, stop stop stop all the noise, please John, please—

Anyway. She’d been right about the monsters in the woods. She was right about Stiles, too, with his dirty eyes, stop staring at me, I can feel it, stop staring, who are you? Who are you?!

Stiles choked on a breath and bent his knees, ducking down enough to bang his head against the edge of the attic floor and press it there, splintery wood biting into his forehead. 

“Shit shit shit. Fuck.” 

There was apparently method in her madness and Stiles could use any resources he could get now. Maybe there were clues left behind that could help, especially since the Hales kept appearing up like particularly aggressive pop-ups. He needed to do something and the internet had been particularly unhelpful. If he never ran across another werewolf erotica masquerading as a supernatural blog it would be too soon. 

So! No time for cowardice. His dad would be home in just a few hours and no way was Stiles going to be caught up here. So he he hauled himself over the lip of the floor with a final tortures creak of the ladder and plowed through the nearest cobwebs. 

His moms boxes were still new looking in comparison to all the other junk, the cardboard only a little grayish from the dust. The tape was certain still stubborn and new enough to be a problem when he tried to pull it off, only succeeding in ripping off chunks of cardboard. Should have brought a box cutter or something. 

The first box held office supplies. Binders and stick notes in the shape of flowers, colored pens and half used up pencils with broken tips. But there was several notebooks and it was those he pulled out. 

Six of them, and a two sketch books, all battered and stained, the paper covers of the cheap notebooks torn. Stiles ran his fingers over the scribbles on the front of one cover, the grooves so deep he could catch a nail in them. The pen had stabbed straight through in some places. 

These were some of the last ones. There whole boxes of others. 

Setting them gently by the opening, Stiles closed the box as best he could and went looking for more.

His mom had loved stationary. Pretty notebooks, wash tape, calligraphy pens. She was rarely able to resist when she a saw a pretty journal or an interesting set of envelopes and cards. There had been a ton strewn throughout the house for as long as Stiles could remember, almost all of them empty because though his mom loved them, she could never form the habit of using them. 

Dad had teased her all the time about it. She’d sneer playfully at him, say at least it was a healthier obsession than fancy coffees and probably cheaper int eh long run too! Your soul is going to turn as bitter as your breath if you keep drinking that bean juice, John! 

He’d then chase her around them with exaggerated kisses every time she let him catch her, demanding she take back any comment about his breath. 

She’d never used any of those journals. Not until she was sick. All those journals and diaries she resolved to fill at the beginning of every year and then forgot about in a week were suddenly always in her hands. 

She filled hundreds of them, it seemed like. More often then not it was just pages and pages of nonsense. The same word written over and over again. Spirals and jagged scribbles that tore through pages. Sometimes she stop on the middle of writing, staring at the page with wide and then throw it away with a scream. One night she had gathered up armfuls of them and started a fire in the backyard, ripping out pages one by one and feeding them to the fire. 

Stiles remembered sitting by the backdoor and watching through a crack as his dad desperately trying to coax her inside. In the end, he settled for fetching a blanket and sitting bracketed behind her, blanket wrapped around them both until all the journals were empty husks. 

But there were still so many more. 

Stiles hadn't looked at them much when he packed them. Had never had the chance to look at them before she died, with how possessive she was of each one. But sometimes he saw words over her shoulder as she wrote, or came across a half destroyed paper. So he knew there had been stuff about all the monsters she saw and all the things she heard screaming in the forest. And Stiles needed to know what else she’d seen if he ever wanted an upper hand against werewolves. 

By the time all the boxes of notebooks and journals were accounted for, he had a mountain by the stairs. Grimy with dust and riddle with spider bites that were hopefully not going to rot his arms off, Stiles carried them all into his bedroom and hid them in the depths of his closet and beneath his bed, piling dirty laundry over them for good measure. 

Then he grabbed one at random and settled into his bed with a notebook of his own and a purple highlighter, ready to work. 

After a whole weekend of sleepless nights and days, Stiles was actually… no closer to understanding anything than he had been before, shit. 

He’d gotten through half the notebooks, journals and sketchpads, had three of his own lined school notebooks filled up with copies of anything that seemed important. The highlighter was all foggy and stained with ink, each use making it murkier until he was forced to concede defeat and dig out a boring yellow one. 

But did he actually learn anything? Who the heck knew, it was basically in crazy code and he wasn't on his mom level of psycho yet. 

If he had to read anymore of those stupid books, then he would get there pretty quickly. 

Groaning, he shoved his face into the throw pillow he’d stolen from the couch (it was his favorite, covered in roses and tassel-y trim and looking like it belonged in a grannies guest room, but God it was squishy). 

Okay, so maybe he had learned a few things. Like, the Hales were definitely werewolves but his mom hadn't been too concerned about them. She rambled on a lot out the color of eyes and the fact they could hear her, whatever that meant, but unlike most things she hadn't been scared of them or wanted to tear their eyeballs out with her bare hands. 

That particular, gruesomely detailed desire was almost exclusively for someone named Deaton. Stiles was pretty sure that was the town vet, but he could be wrong, maybe. Anyway, he mom was convinced the guy was evil incarnate. Went on and on about how he lied to her, how he had tricked her. But exactly what he lied to her about was difficult to parse. Sometimes when he tilted his head and looked at it just right it felt like Stiles was had something to do with that lie. But then if he looked at it another way it seemed like Deaton had just sold his mom some bad fertilizer, so….

She also seemed to have a huge grudge against the preserve. That Stiles had already known, of course. It was hard not to notice when she refused to get any closer than several blocks to the road leading to it, and made his dad drive along the other side of town in order to reach the hospital. 

According to a lot of the books, the trees were watching her. Wanted her. The roots were reaching through the ground, traveling under the city and coming to drag her down. Stiles had gotten goosebumps whenever he came across those lines. But weirdly, they didn't have the same anger and hate as those about Deaton. Didn't even feel like his mother had been scared, exactly, about it. Even though Stiles personally thought it was way creepier than being conned into buying bad fertilizer.

It felt more like spite, really. And not even the really nasty kind. More like the kind where you planted a bunch of flowers in your front yard that were the color your neighbor hated. A petty spitefulness and Stiles could get behind that, really. He and his mom were awful similar like that.

Anyway. There was one useful thing that didn't come off as insane raving, even if it was written that way. According to his mom, there were Secrets in the archives. Sometimes the archives were referred to as the library, so that was a little misleading, but Stiles was sure his mom was talking about an actual place, one she had access to, which meant Stiles could find it. And maybe whatever was there would be more coherent than his moms notebooks. 

There were eight libraries in Beacon Hills. There was, of course, the public county library. Then the various school libraries scattered throughout the school buildings and various grades. All of which Stiles had snuck or talked his way into over the years. There was also rumors of a library in Lydias house, which was totally unfair and yet awesome.

Then there was the privately owned, privately funded museum cum library at the edge of town, in what had, a century ago, been a schoolhouse. 

It had been an attempted tourist trap in the eighties, with plows and wagon wheels and gold panning paraphernalia. All the stained glass from the eighteen hundreds era victorian deathtrap of a mayors residence had been moved there after he building partially collapsed, making the juxtaposition between white-washed rustic and antique luxury kind of jarring. There was a cannon that claimed to be from the Alamo sitting by the front door surrounded by warning signs and chains, and a memorial fountain. A memorial for what was kind of up in the air. 

Stiles had not visited it before. It wasn't his kind of place, honestly, and the library part was supposed to be both small and in the expanded cellar. Which sounded like the kind of place a mildly claustrophobic dude should avoid. But he’d stumbled across a few articles in the public libraries selection of town newspapers that hinted at there being rare books.

So. Spooky, yeah, but probably worth the claustrophobia. 

And he had backup anyway. 

“Mom took me here a couple times,” Scott mused, parking his bike on the grass and not even noticing as the kickstand gave out and plopped onto its side, handle digging a furrow in the lawn. He was gnawing on the stained popsicle stick from their probable ill advised purchase from the corner store and staring at the cannon wistfully. “I put rocks in there and we got yelled at.”

“Shameful,” Stiles scoffed in a withering british accent. “Have you no respect for history?”

Scott rolled his eyes. “I was five.”

Stiles cupped his chin and squinted thoughtfully into the distance for a moment. “Alright. The court shall let you off with a warning, young man. Take this opportunity to turn your life around.”

Scott blinked at him. “Have you been sneaking into the courthouse again?”

“Again? Dude, I never stopped.”

“Oh. Yeah, that makes sense.”

They started walking up the gravel path to the front steps, both looking at the stained glass set on its side above the door. Heads cocking in tandem, they paused to try and make it out.

“Angels?”

Stiles shook his head. “Nah. If it was from the church, maybe, but it was a mayors house. I don’t think politicians want angels watching them.”

“You’re not funny.”

The steps creaked as they climbed them, dipping even under Scotty’s weight. Definitely a hazard, no wonder no one bothered to come here, Stiles thought loftily. 

The cowbell hung over the door rang but Stiles didn't know why anyone bothered with it when the door itself creaked like it was manned by an overly enthusiastic haunted house employee. Stiles winced at Scott and shoved the door closed as quickly as possible, in order to make the sound stop sooner. 

The floor was all old wooden planks. Once painted, they had been sanded down to bare wood and all the little nails could be seen. Stiles was more interested in the tiny receptionist county directly to the left of the door, and the bored middle aged lady sitting behind it.

Sauntering up, Stiles a dug a crumpled dollar out his pocket and stuffed it into the mostly empty donation box, making unerring eye contact with the lady. Cynthia, according to the nametag. 

“Hello. We want to see the library, please.”

Cynthia stared at him over the edge of cat-eye bifocals and hummed. “And why would you be interested in that?”

“For the knowledge,” Stiles stated firmly. 

“For the knowledge indeed,” Cynthia echoed. She dropped off her high stool, triple tier bead necklace clacking as she dug through a metal box. Finally, she unearthed two blank recipe cards and placed them on the desk. “Name and address here. No books are to be removed and if any are damaged I will” here she scowled meaningfully at them, causing Scotty to gulp and grip the back of Stiles shirt “be taking it up with your parents.”

Stiles was already using a blue ink Bic to jot down his information. And when Scott made no move to do his, he took over that one too. Though he used Scotts old address because he sure as shit wasn't leaving his bros information lying around for just anyone to find. “Yeah, cool, thats great. We’ll be super careful.”

Cynthia took the cards, checking them over. “Hmm. Alright. Straight to the back wall and then turn left. There’s a sign.”

“Awesome! Thank you Cynthia.” 

While she re-ascended her chair, Stiles grabbed Scotts hand and tugged him away. 

“She’s scary,” Scott whispered once there were well out of earshot, in the middle of the schoolroom with all its scratched plastic display cases holding pieces of local history.

“Really?” Stiles asked. “I didn’t think so.”

“She was so tall though! And her eyes were mean.” 

Stiles hummed noncommittally. Scott was usually either extremely sharp when it came to people or dumb as a soggy cardboard box of rocks. It was always a tossup either way and impossible to tell which without evidence. 

He was just happy she wasn't following them down to supervise. 

The hand painted sign with with a lopsided arrow pointed down was above the narrow, stone stairs leading to the basement. Because they were both well versed in jumpscares and the environments in which they happened, Scott and Stiles paused at the opening and looked suspiciously downwards. 

“Looks okay,” Stiles mumbles. And it did. The light was not a a bare, dangling bulb that flickered. Instead it was an eighties era glass dome thing, spotted with fly specks and all yellow from dust. The door was open and painted weird gray-pink. Like brains, probably. 

“Why are we here again?” Scott asked, but when Stiles bounded down the stairs he followed. 

“I told you, research.”

“Yeah,” Scott said and wrinkled his nose at the scent of mildew. The depths of the cellar-basement (which was actually kind of small) stretched out in front of them. “But you keep avoiding telling me what it is.”

Stiles shrugged. He really hadn't told Scott anything and, okay, that did make him feel sort of shitty, but it was for his own good! Stiles hadn't even intended to bring him along at all, but Scott had pointed out they weren't hanging out very often anymore and that if Stiles was bored with him he should just say something, its okay, Scott wouldn't mind, honest!

Scott was a cunning guilt tripper under all that baby fat and curly hair. Stiles still fell for it every time.

“Okay, okay. I’ll tell you.” Spinning around, Stiles crossed his arms and tilted his head back so he would stare down his nose. “Its like this. All the historical stuff from the town library got moved here in the nineties, right?”

“Did it?” Asked Scott in clear surprise. 

“It did. And I want to look up some stuff, like, newspapers and things.”

Scott nodded and mulled it over, Stiles giving him plenty of time even as he kept sneaking glances at the mismatched shelves. 

“Why?” Scott finally asked. 

“Because.”

Scott blinked at him. “Because why?”

Stiles groaned extravagantly. “I just want to, you know? I want to look up all those old wives tales and stuff, like from the gold miners. You know, what Lesley Morgan told us about when she babysat us?”

Scott shuddered and Stiles almost did as well. Lesley was always down for dishing out the gory details of local ghost stories when asked. And sometimes she didn't even need to be asked at all.

The one Stiles was interested in was about one of the first Mayors of the town in 1898, Phineas Reiner. According to Lesley, the man had been a dark wizard who took over the town through black magic. And a bunch of black wolves that he controlled. Lesley had claimed that the ghost of those black wolves stilled haunted the forests and would eat any little boys that didn't adhere to their bedtimes. 

Kind of embarrassing now, but at the time the threat had been super effective. 

Stiles hadn't thought much of it until he was trying to research the Hales via local newspapers in the county library, where he learned that old Phineas had married Marta Hale. 

And then all those stories took on a whole new light. 

So. Stiles knew the Hales were werewolves, but that was pretty much the extent of his knowledge. Hopefully, there would be something here that would teach him how to deal with said werewolfishness. 

Half an hour later Scott was curled up in the corner of the little stairwell, earbuds in and eyes drooping as he fiddled with his phone. Stiles had a stack of photo albums filled with newspaper clippings on the only table in the library, one of those foldable leg ones, and was about ready to pull out his eyebrows in frustration. 

Apparently, the Hales had been around even longer than he’d thought. Like, first settlers of Beacon Hills longer. Basically the founders of the town, though not in name. 

A lot of marrying to politicians though the Hales themselves never ran for office. A lot of preservation rallies in the sixties and seventies when lumber companies started sniffing around the preserve. A lot of funding the startups of small businesses and school trips and scholarships and so on and so forth. The Hales had been a big deal for forever and that was not good news for Stiles, no sir, not a bit. 

He’d known they were well respected and stuff. Of course he did, that was common knowledge. But it hadn't sunk in that being werewolves was not the most dangerous and powerful thing about them. 

And he still hadn't found anything useful. 

Pouting in his soul, Stiles began shuttling the albums back to their shelves, once again filling the room with clouds of disturbed dust. 

At least he knew a bit more about old Phineas, which was cool. Guy was a german immigrant that came straight from the boat in New York and all the way to California, not a pause between. He’d been pretty young, fifteen and alone, but he’d settled into Beacon Hills seamlessly. Helped along, or course, by none other than the Hales. 

Been a good mayor though. Nice guy. 

Stiles thumped the last unhelpful album into place with a resentful slam of his palm and sighed. 

“Shit.”

Slumping dramatically down the shelves, Stiles sat on the floor and pulled out his newest tiny notebook (acquired from the Sheriffs desk, this time) and flipped it open. His moms unhelpful words glared up at him. 

“‘The root of the matter screams from the shelves’, huh? What does that even mean, mom? ‘The past is a lie lie lie’. Well, fine, but it wouldn't have killed you to tell me what the truth was, would it?” Groaning, he tapped the notebook against his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. 

He wished she was still around. Wished he could just ask her instead of trying to follow crazy coded clues like some Mystery Inc. reject. 

When he opened his eyes again, he stared at the shelf across from him and grimaced. 

That was one dirty book. Yikes. All the stuff in the library/cellar of unhelpfulness was pretty gritty but this one took that cake. Or maybe took the mudpie… 

Curious, Stiles scooted on his knees and peered at it. 

Huge. Size of an encyclopedia with an over inflated ego, with a dirty brown cover that had once been red. All the gilt decoration had been rubbed off, dull bald patches the only hint that it had been there at all. No title, either. 

It with crammed sideways on the shelf, too tall to be upright, and a bunch of old books sat on top of it. Being on the bottom shelf there was a whole lot of dust and Stiles used the edge of his thumb to brush some of it away. 

The book zapped him. 

“Ow, fuck, ow!” Reeling back, Stiles glared between the hand he was shaking uselessly in the air and the book that had practically bit him. “Ow.”

If possible, it looked like the book had receded further into the shelf. 

And, well, Stiles was a smart kid but he was also a curious kid. Intelligence would dictate that a person leave the creepy book that had possibly maybe bitten you alone; Curiosity just perked up with interest.

And if it was just that, Stiles would have listened to intelligence and left well enough alone. But curiosity had stubbornness on its side and two against one was a majority, alright? He basically had to.

So, quick as possible, he grabbed either end of the binding and wrenched the book out. 

Surprisingly there was no more zapping. Also, there was no resistance and when he pulled with all his strength it sent him rocketing back into the shelves behind him, which instantly began to sway and creak, a veritable tsunami of dust filling the air. 

“Stiles!” Scott yelped, scrambling to disentangling himself from his headphones while running to where Stiles was attempting to keep the shelf upright. Books rained down around them. 

“Help,” Stiles grunted, face squished against the several books, arms outspread to hold others in place. 

Eventually they managed to stop the wobbling. Sitting in the skinny little aisle, peering through the dusty gloom, they waited in tense silence for an adult to appear. After a few minutes, they glanced at one another and slumped in tandem. 

“What did you do?!” Scott hissed.

“I don’t know! This whole place is a deathtrap, God, I just bumped it.” When Scott looked at him doubtfully, Stiles huffed. “I swear!”

“Well, alright. Are you ready to go yet?”

Stiles looked over his shoulder. Somehow, it seemed the book was further away than when he had dropped it and he stared at it suspiciously. “Almost.”

Scott coughed and Stiles attention snapped back. “Shit. Asthma?”

Scott nodded miserably. 

“Shit,” Stiles repeated. “Sorry.”

“S’okay. Just, dust, you know?”

“Yeah buddy, I know.” Heaving Scott upright, Stiles ushered him up the stairs. “Wait outside, I’ll be right out. Just, uh, gotta clean this up okay?”

Scott nodded. Already at the top of the stairs, he seemed happier. Man, Stiles should have realized how much Scott hated the place. “Sorry.”

“Its okay.” Swiping his sleeve under his nose, Scott grinned, lopsided and hopeful. “Video games after?”

“Yeah, totally!” Stiles would even play whatever Scott wanted without complaint, too. 

After Stiles watched Scott disappear into the depths of the museum, he raced back down the stairs.

Sure enough, the book was almost out of the aisle, half turned around a shelf. Stiles scowled at it. 

“Hey. You. Crazy possessed bastard book.” Swiping an ancient looking ruler from a stuffed wastebasket of similar items, Stiles squat walked around the book and poked it. “What the hell are you?”

The book didn't do anything. 

“Hey, stupid, its too late to play possum. The cats is out of the bag and has been since it fucking bit me, you asshole.”

The book still did nothing. Stiles scoffed, jabbed the ruler between pages and flipped it open. 

Lying open on the crusty, balding carpet, it was just a book. Huge pages full of cramped hand writing, small but intricate illustrations. The writing was blocky and rough, cursive and therefore harder to read than Stiles would have preferred. But it definitely looked like it was full of secrets. 

Grinning as malevolently as possible, Stiles edged closer and loomed. “You’re coming home with me, Mr Crookbook and theres nothing you can do to stop me.”

In the end Stiles took of his hoodie and slipped the book inside, wrapping the sleeves around and tying them like a particularly wimpy straitjacket. There was a single, narrow window at the end of the cellar and Stiles managed to pry it open at the cost of bending one of the blades of his Swiss Army friend. He patted it gently for its sacrifice before tucking into a pocket. 

And then he heaved the book out the window, slamming it closed afterwards so it coldly creep back in.

And it was that simple. He stuffed books back onto shelves hurriedly, without caring about organization, and sprinted through the museum and out the door with only a hurried wave at receptionist, who didn't even look up. 

Scott was at the cannon, probably wondering if he should put rocks in it again like the dork he was, and startled when Stiles zipped past him to circled the building. Stiles could see him looking around nervously, probably wondering if the receptionist was going to pop out and hunt them down for whatever Stiles had done. Poor Scott, trained so well. 

The hoodie wrapped book was sitting just where Stiles had left it. 

“Stiles, are you stealing something?” Scott asked unhappily. He sounded weary as a war widow and sighed heavily when Stiles grinned unashamedly at him. 

“Yes.”

“Thats wrong.”

“Well, technically, but its just a book. And who’s really gonna miss it?”

“Why do you want then?”

Ah, right. Stiles scratched his arm and shrugged. “Looked…. interesting?”

Scott sighed. “Will you bring it back?”

Stiles hid his crossed fingers behind his back and nodded, feeling like a slimy slug for lying to Scott but knowing it was for the greater good. Or at least Stiles’ greater good. 

Eventually, with Scott keeping a very obvious lookout, Stiles tipped the book carted their bikes around the building. Since Scott was the only one with a basket, they traded for the day, the book nestled inside, tied to the basket with strings from the hoodie. 

“So it doesn't fall out!” Stiles said brightly when Scott gave him a Look. 

When they got to Scotts house, Stiles brought the book in with them and sat on it through six levels. That would show it who was boss, he thought viciously. Butt supremacy right there.

When Stiles, still with the loan of Scotts bike, carted his illicit goods home, he wasn't even scared of it anymore.

Arranging a precautionary fire extinguisher, a carton of salt and a bag of garlic cloves by his side, Stiles cracked the book open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Might be a little rough, please forgive me.  
> And behold; Plot! Where it is going, nobody knows, least of all me!  
> Comment if you feel inclined. Hope you enjoyed!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWs at bottom of page

The writing was tiny and Stiles realized pretty quickly that it had been written by lots of different people.The edges of the pages were yellow and kind of chewed up, but the inside of the book was in suspiciously good condition. 

Stiles flipped through it, chewing on his nails as he tried to figure out what the heck it was. There were sections on plants, just long rambling pages about plants. What the roots were good for, what the leaves were good for, what it tasted like, what it felt like, when to harvest it. And it wasn't even magic-y! There was a recipe for dandelion salad! And dandelion wine. And weird coffee substitute from the roots and—

Look, he just didn't need to know about weeds, okay?

Then there were the disturbingly well illustrated anatomy sections. Animals and people and even insects. He had never thought about how a spider worked. He did now.

(And, alright, that was really cool, but he couldn't afford to get distracted!)

After a few worthless hours, he was almost on the verge of giving up and deeming the book a failure. It was only after he was gloomily inspecting an illustrated breakdown of an owl that he realized it wasn't an owl.

Those were boobs.

Finger tucked into the pages so he didn't lose he place, Stiles shut the book and stared at the wall. Counted to five. Opened it again. 

Yeah, no, those were definitely boobs.

The breakdown was illustrated in sections, so at first glance it was hard to tell it was the same subject. There were legs with wicked looking talons, long, thick feathery tail, big grey wings with subtle bars and spots. And then boobs and a woman's head with a big crest of feathers and large round eyes. 

The writing was not in english. Cramped and blocky, it looked russian, but Stiles couldn't be sure. Thankfully there were a few notes written on the edges of the pages in several different hands, but most were in english. 

‘Sirin feathers greatly increased potency of elixir’ one scribble said in looping script, the ink a warm grey. ‘Let hang in salt water solution until crystals formed, ground it to powder, infused essence of Valerian, Aconite, clover honey’. 

Stiles hunched over the book and traced his fingers along edge of painstakingly perfect picture of a feather. 

He didn't know what the book was but it sure felt like it was worth all the trouble. Humming, he flipped it closed and stared down at the blank, no longer embossed cover. 

“You’re freaky weird but kind of awesome.” The book did nothing in response, but Stiles wasn't concerned. So far it hadn't done anything but try to slide away. And, you know, zapped him that one time. But nothing else had happened and so it was definitely, probably, most likely safe! “Wouldn't happen to have an index, though, would you?”

Nothing. 

“Thought so.”

Idly flipping though the hundreds of pages, Stiles considered what to do. 

Likely there was something in the book that would help him. How could there not be when it had magical creatures listed in it like they were definitely real? But there really were literal hundreds of pages, big pages that were filled to capacity and beyond. Going through just a few of them would take hours. Trying to do all of them would take… who knows, maybe years? And he just didn't have that kind of time.

He paused on a picture of a rabbit with wings and sighed. It felt like now that he had seen one freaky thing, all the others were easier to spot. Like a point and click game when you finally hit your groove. 

Still a whole lot of stuff about weeds though. And tea. 

By the time his dad was home and the lights were off, Stiles had half a notebook full of notes, a raging headache and no clue what to do next.

He stuffed the book into a pillowcase and knotted it closed, then hung it from three bunched together hangers in his closet. He stared at it for a long moment before shutting the door. 

School had become a fresh hell recently. Not that it was any sort of picnic before. 

Stiles had made his peace with being at the bottom of the school hierarchy. Not even a bottom rung, no, he was the soggy ground the ladder sat on. Scott was almost as bad off, though at least the girls and the teachers tended to give him some sympathy due to puppy eyes and asthma. Which was cool. Well, other than the wheezing specter of possible death. Could do without that, really.

Usually Stiles was content to go about his day with head down and tongue between his teeth to keep from sending teachers into frustrated tears or classmates into rage induced rampages against him. But eleven year olds were surprisingly vicious. Especially in packs led by Jackson, king of the playground and supreme ruler of the boys locker room. 

“Hey, shit pile Stiles,” said king was saying as he stalked Stiles along the edge of the playground. Danny and Scott were both elsewhere; Scott sitting behind to talk to a teacher about yet another failed spelling test and Danny… well, who knew where Danny was. Guy was a ninja.

“Right, yeah, nice one. Good alliteration and all that. Who helped you come up with such a zinger?”

Jackson sneered his patented Whittemore sneer and slunk closer. Brian and Turner, his cronies of the day, yipped like confused hyenas and followed.

“Looking pretty rough there, Stinkinski. No one around to make sure you don’t dress like a hobo?” He stopped, an expression of exaggerated insight contorting his face like squashed putty. “Oh, thats right. There isn't.”

And there it was. Yet another showing of the Mock The Lack Of Parent, trotted out for the millionth time. Stiles sighed heavily and told himself that kicking Jackson in the balls would cause yet more problems for his dad. And Stiles was trying to keep his problem creation down to a maximum of six a month. He settled for a slow clap and an eye roll and told himself that Jackson was too stupid to say anything really hurtful. 

“Wow. Class act as always, Jacks-ass. Got anything else?”

Juking forward (and Stiles did not flinch, pfft, don’t be ridiculous), Jackson sneered the slightly soft, pug puppy sneer of someone who was still mostly baby fat. “She’s probably happier in a coffin than taking care of a dumb-ass like you.”

Stiles twitched, cold rushing through his arms and legs while his chest burned hotter with every second. “Shut the fuck up.” 

And Jackson grinned like a shark smelling blood in the water. “Ooh, did I hurt your feelings? I thought you loved facts.”

“Fuck off, my mom loved me,” Stiles hissed.

Brian and Turner were shifting nervously behind them, looking on the edge of jumping whatever shit ship Jackson was sailing. Turner cleared his throat and chirped a quiet and ultimately ignored, “Dude, come on…”

Jackson leaned closer. “I bet she offed herself just to get away from you.”

And Stiles didn't really remember deciding to headbutt the guy, but even when his forehead connected with a wet crackle on Jacksons nose, he didn't mind. His body and brain were for once in perfect harmony and when Jackson fell onto his back with a shrill scream, Stiles followed him right down. 

It hurt because what if it was true? His mom hadn't recognized him and whatever she saw in his place terrified her. Hurt her, though Stiles never would, never had. 

And, God, no one knew how she had died. Not really. His dad said it was just her time. Was natural. But Stiles had been a ghost in that hospital for months and he heard everything. Read every scrap of paper with his moms name on it, every file and EKG strip and MRI printout. And the doctors, the nurses, the damn janitorial staff all had those speaking side glances going on, those quiet mutters of ‘What happened?’ and ‘Isn't it strange?’.

So maybe Jackson was right. 

“Stop that right now! Mr Stilinksi!”

Arms scooped beneath his arms, hands digging tight into his shoulder as he was dragged back kicking and spitting. Around him were legs and feet, the skits and slacks of teachers, the shocked faces of students a little further behind. Jackson curled into a whimpering little ball on the ground, cupping his face and shaking. 

Good. 

Stiles went boneless, flopping in the hands holding him while the anger drained away. 

“Mr Stilinksi!” 

Stiles dropped his head back to stare up at the principle. Her sharp, ferret featured face was splotched red and white, white hair wisping from its usual tight braid. 

“Ms Speare,” Stiles mocked back. 

Her eyes narrowed. 

“My office. Right now.”

As the teacher slowly released him, Stiles brushed off his clothes and scooped the hair back from his face, glaring cooly at the crowd around them. Tucker and Brian were nowhere to be seen, but everyone else had apparently crawled out of the cracks to see the aftermath. Stiles spotted Scott at the back of the of the group, his face white and eyes anime enormous, being held in place by Cora Hale of all people. She herself looked on the verge of violent, inventive homicide and was glaring at Stiles with wild eyes and gritted teeth. 

Stiles looked away. 

“Lead on Ms Speare.”

Not amused, the principle crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. “You know where my office is. Mr Tran will escort you there and you can wait for me.” Her eyes skipped back down to Jackson and all the ice melted. “As for you Jackson, do you need an ambulance? We will be calling your parents, don’t worry, but does anything feel wrong?”

As Stiles was led away, he could faintly hear Jackson latching onto the sympathy and bullshitting away. 

The bastard. 

Stiles had been waiting for half an hour in the principles office, surrounded by all her many potted cacti and beanie baby collectables while Tran the Science Man watched his through the open door from the receptionists desk, where he was regaling her with a play by play in a hushed voice. 

Stiles swung his feet hard and fast enough to make his ankles ache, hands locked behind his head as he stared at the ceiling. Anger was still a slow burring simmer of acid in his stomach, but most of it had faded. Thankfully, the adrenaline crash shakes were already long gone. 

Mostly he just felt hungry. 

And, alright, kind of scared too. 

This wasn't like mouthing off in clash. Drawing all over himself with the colored markers, or back talking a teachers. He knew this was… well, kind of terrible, really. He closed his eyes at the thought of how his dad would react. 

Not well, definitely, because Stiles was definitely not telling him why had had gone batshit psycho on Jackson ass. 

He heard the tap of Ms Speares practical heels over the linoleum before he saw her. 

Her hair had been smoothed back, but she didn't look much better. Stiles was calm enough to feel a little bad about that, because she was like, ninety, and also pretty cool. She did archery, how badass was that? And she was also smartest person here which Stiles respected and appreciated, if only because she could crush his machinations like Godzilla would an overpass. 

Silence reigned as she closed the door, rummaged through oak filing cabinets, fastidiously rearranged her old school rotary, and then finally seated herself with a ladylike smoothing of her knee length skirt. 

Then she folded her hands atop the file that was probably his and said “Well?”

“Well what? We all know that Jackson needed an ass kicking.” Trying to sprawl casually across the chair left him a little too spread eagled for comfort, so he aborted and crossed his legs instead. And his arms for good measure, too. “You should be thanking me for doing a public service free of charge.”

“You broke his nose.”

And, okay, Stiles knew it was shitty but he literally could not stop the grin that spread over his face at that. 

Ms Speare sighed. “Mr Stilinski. Myself and the staff have been as accommodating as possible considering your recent circumstances. However, this is not something that can be ignored and even if it were, I would not do so.” Her eyes narrowed. Despite not moving a micrometer she suddenly seemed to loom. “I will not tolerate assault, Mr Stiliniski.”

The anger in his belly finally guttered out into a chill and he dropped his gaze. He winced to find his fingers already wrapped in the hem of his moms hoodie, pinkie poking through a hole. His eyes burned.

“Your father is already on his way. You can tell me what prompted your actions now or wait until he arrives.”

Fuck. Shit fuck. He knew logically that of course his dad would be called. But somehow he hadn't thought of that yet. With a groan, Stiles buried his face in his hands and hunched forward. 

“Crap.”

“Indeed. So what will it be?”

Stiles dragged his lower lids down and glared through burning eyes at principle. “He was just being a butt like usual. I got fed up with it. Thats all.”

“That’s not a good enough reason for me to provide any leniency.” A shadow of something, regret maybe, passed over her eyes, and Stiles looked away. “At this point, we’re facing suspension at the very least. You could possibly be expelled, Stiles. This is a serious matter.”

“I know, okay! I fucking know!”

His hands hurt and his face itched. He wasn't going to cry of course, but damn if he didn't want to. 

Yelling was coming through door, high and angry but too muffled for Stiles to tell what it was about or who it was. Not that he cared really. Ms Speare was frowning at the door, though and eventually brome their silent stalemate to get up and poke her head out. Then she left entirely. 

Stiles groaned and sunk deeper into his seat, staring dully at the ceiling. 

He didn't know what he dad was going to do this time. Mostly, Stiles had just been sent to his room with no real time limit. Whenever he felt like it he could leave again and his dad wouldn't say a word, if he noticed at all 

Granted, Stiles hadn't done anything like this before. It was far above petty backtalk. His skin crawled, thinking about all those time he sat with his dad and the deputies, listening to them talk about some kid or another that was always getting into fights, causing trouble. They’d shake their heads and say ‘That kid is gonna end up right here someday. Going down a bad road’. And they were usually right. 

Was he one of those kids now? He hoped not, if only for his dads sake. 

The door opened and Ms Speare walked in, followed by his dad. 

Stiles sat bolt upright and swallowed. Locked one hand into a fist inside his hoodie pocket and waved the other. “Hey, dad.”

Eyes blood shot, hair lank and overlong, his dad stared at him for a long moment through a blank haze of exhaustion. Stiles could see it in every line of his body. In the way his breathing hitched as he buried his face in one hand and didn't greet Stiles back. 

“I’m so sorry, Ms Speare,” he said, sitting in the empty chair beside Stiles and not even looking at him. 

Somehow, that hurt worse than any of the things Jackson had ever said and he jerked his gaze into his lap, biting his tongue to keep from crying. 

“Jackson was taken to the emergency room to get his nose set,” the principle said evenly. She flipped the file on her desk open and stared at with thin lips and narrowed eyes. “His parents requested a meeting with you and I at the earliest opportunity to discuss the matter.”

His dad hunched forward, elbows braced on his knees and head in shaking hands. Stiles kept his eyes on the carpet, on the little smear of blood on the toe of his sneaker. 

“Mr Stilinski, did you hear me?”

“Yes. Yeah, I heard. We are very sorry Ms Speare. I’ll have a talk with Stiles tonight. Rest assured he will not go unpunished.”

Wouldn't he? Stiles wondered distantly. 

“That is not the issue at hand,” the principle said and tapped her fingers briskly on the desk, snagging both their attention. Her eyes were sharp and settled on Stiles. “I have been informed that Stiles was not unprovoked. Stiles. Care to tell me what happened?”

“I already did,” Stiles muttered nastily. His heart sunk when his dad didn't so much as glare at him for it. 

“Hmm.” Her fingers drummed rhythmically and Stiles found himself watching them. Ththththump. Ththththump. “Someone told me that Jackson said something… extremely inappropriate in regards to your mother. It was confirmed by someone else as well. I have not had the opportunity to question Jackson himself about it yet, but it would be helpful if you told me the truth now.”

Someone had told her? Who? Tucker, Brian? He didn't remember seeing anyone else nearby and Stiles sure as shit hadn't said anything. 

His stomach felt iced over and he shot a quick, probably overly panicked look at his dad. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“Hmm.” After a moment, she snapped the file shut. “Would you wait outside while I talk to your father, please?”

Stiles hesitated. She was probably going to tell him what Jackson had said, which was a bad, bad idea. He glanced between the two of them, wondered if he should refuse. If he should tell her not to say anything. If he should say that whatever anyone had told her was a lie. 

He didn't do anything but leave. 

The receptionist didn't say anything when Stiles sunk into one of the much less comfortable waiting room chairs. He was wallowing deeply in his internal swamp of misery it took a few seconds to realize someone was sitting across from. 

Cora’s hands were stuck tight under her armpits and the scowl on her face was so heavy he was surprising it didn't just drag her face down onto the ground. Two seats away from her sat Tucker, curled up like snail devoid of its shell and looking just as near death. Stiles had never before witnessed any skin tone of the particular green. 

Cora was staring at right at him and Stiles blinked. “Hi?”

“Hey. That your dad, then?”

Stiles glanced at the closed door of the principles office, her classy silver placard surrounded by less classy peeling stickers. “Yes?”

Cora grunted. “I’ve seen him before. He came to our house when… well, you know.”

“I do know, yes.”

“Anyway. You told them what that dickbag Jackson said?”

“Language,” the receptionist called, not looking up from her phone. 

Stiles stared at her and then glared as the realization sunk in. “You.”

She glared back but Stiles could tell it was mostly confusion. “Me what?”

“You’re the tattle tale.” Its stung, weirdly, that Cora of all people had butted in where she wasn't wanted. Especially after how chill she was during his whole embarrassing, snotty breakdown on her mom. “You should keep your mouth shut about things that don’t involve you.”

“Excuse you?” She rocked to her feet. For an eleven year old, she could loom pretty effectively, but Stiles was too pissed to care. 

“It wasn't your business.”

“It sure as shit was. When people do things like that its everyones business.”

“Like what? Say mean things? Please, I’ve heard way worse.”

“He said your mom killed herself because of you!”

Stiles jumped up and snarled. “Shut up!”

“Stiles.”

The anger drained away so quickly Stiles stumbled. Out of the corner of his eye and the edge of his attention he could see Cora reaching out to grab him, but he was already hurrying to his dad. His dad, who was gray in the face and haggard and dead eyed, like mom had died minutes ago instead of months. 

“Dad, I’m sorry—“

“Just go to the car, Stiles.”

Stiles went to the car. As he walked he could hear his father apologizing again to the principle, Cora steadily raising her voice as she said it wasn't his fault. It all cut off when he let the front door clatter shut behind him. 

The ride home was dead silent. Not even the radio or the AC to soften it. Just the muted sound of tires over asphalt and the occasional passing car. 

His dad pulled into the driveway, turned the engine off and pocketed the keys and sat staring out the windshield. 

The garage door that hadn't been opened in a year sat in front of them, paint peeling off the edges, a spiderweb stretch over one corner. The grass need to be mowed again and small flowerbeds were more weeds than anything else. 

“I don’t know what to do.” His dads voice was low and weighted with gravel. Sounded like he was in pain but too tired to do anything about. “Your mother always knew what to do, but I don’t Stiles.”

“Well, grounding is the tried and true method,” Stiles chirped, grasping desperately for levity. 

His dad didn't respond, didn't even seem to hear him. They went back to staring quietly out of the window. Across the street sprinklers turned on. 

Stiles whispered “I’m really, really sorry dad. It won’ happen again, I swear.”

His dad blinked and finally moved from his corpse still position. He slumped forward, hands gripped the steering wheel tight as he carefully rested his head against it, eyes sliding shut. 

“Fuck, I miss you,” he said quietly. 

I miss her too, Stiles thought but didn't say. Didn't know what to say. 

Then his dad started to cry. Quietly, just tears sliding down his face with no change in breathing, no shaking of his shoulders. Like that was all he and the strength for. 

“I don’t know what to do,” he said again. 

Stiles unlatched his seatbelt so quickly his fingernail caught in the catch and bent. Scrambling forward, he locked his arms around his dad and squeezed as tight as he could, one knee planted in the passenger seat and the other on the center console, crashing an empty coffee cup and a bouquet of receipts. 

“I’m sorry dad, I’m so sorry. Its okay, you don’t have to do anything. You don’t need to do anything. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“I miss her, fuck, I miss her.”

Stiles shut his eyes against tears so hot they burned and tucked his face against his dads hair, that had so many more gray strands than before. “I’m sorry she’s gone. I’m sorry dad.”

They sat in there for almost an hour, his dad crying into the steering wheel and Stiles wrapped around him as much as possible. Eventually, when the tears stopped, Stiles tugged his dad into the house, onto the couch. Tucked the afghan that now lived on it around him and then snuggled close, leaning with all his weight.

His dad didn't say anything before falling asleep several hours later. 

Stiles didn't fall asleep at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for implied suicide and semi-graphic violence (Stiles breaks a nose and chokes a bitch)
> 
> Also, violence is not the answer!
> 
> Frankly, Stiles would have been better off staying with the book. Poor bb.  
> Anyway! Cora appears again. More of her and Mr Book next chapter.  
> If anyone feels like if I should start putting trigger warnings or something (considering Dead Mom if going to continue being prevalent) please let me know.  
> Comment if inclined, hope you enjoyed!
> 
> (Also, I might be switching form early tuesday mornings to late afternoon. Just FYI)


	9. Chapter 9

“Why are you eating that?” Scott wailed quietly, squatting next to Stiles at the edge of the baseball diamond/lacrosse field/school event picnic patch. 

“For science,” Stiles spluttered through a mouth twisted with disgust and full of half masticated plant. He held fistfuls of leaves in both hands, alternating bites as he chewed with feral focus. “Someones got to do it.”

“Literally no ones got to do it!” Scott said. He’d given up trying to pry anything out of Stiles hands years ago and, even if Stiles was clearly going crazy and eating weeds straight from the ground, he wasn't going to try it now. 

For the past few days Stiles had been slowly cracking under the pressure. The pressure of frustration, at least. The book was refusing to cooperate and he was now 100% certain that it could cooperate if it wanted to. If it wasn't such a massive dick. 

Pages had started sticking together. Words were blurring. The damn thing was starting to censor him, completely blurring things. Whole paragraphs were suddenly illegible and illustrations smeared and blurry. And no matter how stealthy he was, he couldn't write a single thing on any of the pages. The pen just bounced right off. He had cracked eight pencils. His mechanical pencils’s lead had turned to dust and gotten all over his pillow. 

He still hadn't forgiven the book for that. 

So. Since the stupid thing was only letting him read things about plants and weather patterns and fucking bird watching, he would do something with that information. Oh, yes he would. 

“If you get poisoned, mom will totally kick your butt.”

“Hah! Thats what you think. If I get poisoned I’ll be her patient, and she’s not allowed to kick patients.”

Scott sighed. “She could do it, like, with words. Or just look at you. You’ll wish she was kicking your butt, believe me.”

Stiles did. Chewing slower he looked down at the stubby remains of his leaves and shrugged. “Anyway, that doesn't matter because I won’t poison myself. These are safe.” He shook them beneath Scotts nose, which wrinkled in disgust as he leaned away from the spit smeared, sappy things. “See? Dandelions.”

“Dandelions,” Scott repeated tiredly. 

“Why are you eating dandelions?” Cora asked. 

Stiles and Scott both jumped in surprise, Scott even gasping like a telenovela maiden as he leapt back. Stiles simply scowled and took another savage nip. 

Cora hadn't bothered him for the past week, partly because he spent the first two days of it at home. Later, because he would sprint away whenever she so much as looked at him. 

The weird betrayal was still sitting in his chest like some smelly squatter, bringing down the ethical property values of his soul. It just sucked, was all, that his dad had to hear what people were saying. Or, at least what Jackson was saying. And it somehow sucked even more that it was Cora that as good as told him. 

It made no sense. Cora didn't owe him anything, didn't know him. Stiles might have helped save her entire bizarre werwolf family but she didn't know that. Still. It hurt. 

When Stiles continued to ignore her, Cora turned to Scott and repeated, “So, why is he eating weeds?”

Scott, put on the spot (heh. Rhymes), shuffled nervously and looked between the two of them before manners got the better of him. “I. I—um, don’t know? I think he read it in a book.”

Cora squatted down next to them and stared. Stiles continued to ignore her. 

“Doesn’t look very good. Don’t you want some salad dressing or something?”

“‘m not a weakling like that,” Stiles mumbled through his mouthful of pulp, which suddenly tasted ten times worse at the thought of some good old fashioned Ranch. And then he remembered he was supposed to be shunning her and scuttled sideways, turning a shoulder all but encrusted in ice towards her. 

He still didn't know what she had told the principle but he wasn't going to ask. His dad certainly hadn't said anything. 

Still, it was…. kind of cool that Jackson was suspended for two days too. And he had a black mark in his file that was as big as Stiles’. Also, if the rumor mill was churning out high quality grain these days, his parents hadn't been impressed at all.

Didn't mean he was keen to cozy up to miss nosy.

Scattering the last shreds of plant over the ground, Stiles stood and wiped sticky hands on his jeans. All it really did was create some sort of tacky glue with all the loose lint so he tucked them casually into his pockets. 

“C’mon, Scotty. Lets jungle gym.”

“Yeah, okay,” Scott chirped agreeably as he fell into step. He glanced between Stiles and Cora, who was shadowing them, and frowned. 

The kids already playing at the central hub of the playground saw Stiles coming and started easing quietly away, shooting a heck of a lot of unsubtle glances at him as he went. 

Which was understandably. Not everyday one of your classmates went feral and tried to murder someone. Stiles didn't really mind. 

He saw Danny across the concrete walkway, tucked up in the shade against the side of the art classroom, watching him. 

Stiles trotted to the dome and ducked between the bars to get inside. Scott followed. 

“Hows your stomach?” He asked as they hunkered down amid the woodchips. 

“Full.”

Cora climbed the dome with ease until she sat at the top with legs dangling inside. Stiles scowled at her. 

“Why are you here?”

Looking between her knees, she raised and brow and crossed her arms. “Well, I wanted to see what you were doing at first. Now I’m just hanging around in case you start to die.”

Bristling, Stiles smacked the back of one bright green converse. “I wouldn't even want your help. Go away!”

She snorted. “Who says I want to help? Watching you dying would just be way more fun than picking daisies.”

“Well, thats a little mean,” Scott mumbled, attention fixed on the little mound of wood shavings he was building higher. 

Stiles on the other hand was simply appreciative of that level of asshole. Not next level like him, but a good starting point. He loved Scotty to death and all through the afterlife but he just didn't have it in him to sting people with good, mean spirited zingers. 

Scoffing, turning up his nose as high as it would go without risking sunburned nostrils, he said “Whatever.”

Cora laughed. “Whatever.”

The Book was becoming a problem. 

The censoring was already a dick move as far as Stiles was concerned. What sort of book would blur out all the interesting bits? Magic or otherwise, it had no right to police his info intake. Not even his dad did that, and the internet was waaaaay more traumatizing than dissection illustrations and the mating cycles of chipmunks. 

But that wasn't the issue, currently. The issue was that it was swinging in its pillowcase and hangar prison and banging on the closet wall with maddeningly good rhythm. 

“Fuck!” 

Throwing aside the covers so violently he cracked his knuckles on the wall and spawned a new round of cursing. Stomping angrily through the moonlight stretching across the carpet, he heaved the door open and snarled. 

“What the fuck do you want, you dramatic bitch? I’ll turn you into paper mache, I fucking swear to God.”

Its sway decreased. Though it was trapped in cheap cotton and had no eyes anyway, it felt like it was staring at him expectantly. 

“Fine. Fine. Have it your way. Not like I have school in the morning or anything.”

Grumbling through the whole process, Stiles unhooked it from the hangar and dropped it on the bed to untie the knot. 

When it tumbled onto his sheets with a bounce, Stiles froze. 

There were flowers growing out of it. 

Spilling out from between the pages, so many it propped it a little open and they flopped purple petals over his Batman sheet. 

Stiles knew what they were, obviously, he did have the internet. But, and he looked out the window, the timing was kind of suspicious. 

“Is this, like…. a monthly thing?” He asked. 

The book did nothing but radiate crushing disapproval. 

Stiles gingerly sat down, prodding the flowers with a fingertip. Soft. Kind of damp. With a careful eye on the book he broke one off and sniffed it. 

Smelled like a flower. 

He took another looked out the window, closed and locked for once because Stiles might be helpless, but he wasn't stupid. He might not know if Wolfsbane was the anti-catnip of werewolves but he was pretty confident the moon thing was absolutely accurate. 

Pale blue moonlight clashed with the piss yellow of the streetlights. With all the old, established trees throughout the neighborhood it was hard to see much, besides bits of street and sidewalks and the edges of peoples lawns. He still almost expected to see something skulking around. 

“Is there a reason for this? Is dad in danger?”

The book just sat there in inanimate silence. 

Sighing heavily, Stiles tugged the book closer and flipped it open where the flowers were spilling out. 

Most of the page was a by now familiar blur but there were several paragraphs and a painfully rendered, beautiful botanical sketch of Wolfsbane. What little of it he could read said that, while it was not nearly as effective as its powdered ‘imbued’ form, fresh aconite was still pretty decent as werewolf repellent.

Stiles glared. “This is literally what I have been poking for for the past few weeks and you knew it. You bastard.”

He dragged the book into his lap, flowers rolling off the pages. Absentmindedly sweeping them into a heap with his free hand he turned the page. 

Just like any poison, the book said, aconite could also be medicinal, for humans and werewolves both. It was one of the more easily imbued plants as well. Using it in conjunction with alcohol or human medicine would allow werwolves to benefit from the effects of both. 

“So werewolves can’t get drunk, huh? Serves them right.” Also, he thought silently, a drunk werewolf would be ten times scarier.

The writer went on. Even when fresh it confused and irritated a werwolf's senses. When planted or merely strewn over a place, it made it difficult for the average wolf to approach without discomfort and would, if the strains wasn't too strong, pass mostly unnoticed. 

Unfortunately, the rest of the following pages were blurred, because the book could never be 100% helpful. 

Still, with a last suspicious look at the blurred pages, Stiles collected all the flowers into a makeshift basket formed from the pillowcase prison and tiptoed into the hallway. 

Stiles crouched in front of his dads slightly ajar door and carefully scattered handfuls of bruised petals, leaves and stems over the carpet. Hopefully, any werewolf that tried to skulk around his dads door would at least be sneezing its brains out. 

Downstairs he carefully did the same at the front and backdoor, the garage door, as many windows as he could and, as quickly as he could, he opened the front door and flung a handful over the front porch. 

By the time he was done he had about six petals and various dismembered plant bits left. 

The book was where he had left it for once. Just sitting propped against his bundled up snarl of blankets, looking all innocent and unassuming. Stiles squinted at it as he walked slowly to his window. 

Carefully setting the petals at equal space from one another, Stiles looked out the window. Still no monsters skirting the edges of the light or eery shadows darting over lawns. Didn't mean there weren't things out there. 

Still. He sort of, kind of, just a little bit, felt better. The flowers might be nothing but a placebo but it was infinitely better than the nothing that he’d had before. And… well, the book was magic. It was, in a weird way, trying to protect his basically nonexistent childhood innocence. Probably. 

And it didn't need to spontaneously sprout flowers. Which was a whole new facet of the books generally creepiness that he decided not to think too closely on. 

Scrapping the nails of his left foot against the ankle of his right, he crossed his arms and looked away. 

“Thanks for the flowers. I guess.” 

The expected silence. Stiles sighed and trotted off to the bathroom to wash wolf repellent residue off his hands. Better safe than dead, and all that. 

Back at the bed, he debated for a moment. The book hadn't tried to scoot to freedom recently and it had possibly helped him tonight. Picking up the pillowcase (now permanently stretched out of shape from the weight of its captive) he looked between it and the book. 

Coming to a decision, he silently tossed the pillowcase into his dirty pile and slid into bed, pulling the book under the covers with him. 

Several hours later, while he was asleep and drooling on the front cover, he didn't see that ancient red cover start to change. 

If Stiles had been given the option, he never would have spent any time in the vicinity of Cora Hale. Not because she wasn't awesome, because she definitely was, but because her family was composed of mythical monsters that had almost been annihilated by human ones. Stiles wasn't a coward by any stretch, but he also knew that who someone associated with had a direct bearing on how dead they would end up becoming. And he didn't have time to court the concept of being a corpse. 

But he didn't have an option. After his ill advised acknowledgement in the jungle gym, she was suddenly Everywhere, All The Time.

Even then he would have been fine telling her to fuck off. Totally capable of driving her away with sheer dickitude. 

However. However….

Scotty liked her. Scott, who could barely form a full sentence on the rare times he tried to become friends with someone other than Stiles. Scott, who was scared of anyone who punched or shouted at someone even in fun. Scott, who was as almost as ruthlessly mocked and bullied as Stiles. 

So. Stiles could suffer in the name of letting Scott expand his friend zonage. 

At the moment they were seated under the weird lumber awning thing off the side of the cafeteria. Nobody else had really braved the cold and wind, which was whipping a bunch of leaves and bits of straw covers into a tiny cyclone in the middle of the concrete pad. 

Scott, like a true bro, was sharing his lunch. Chicken nuggets evenly distributed between them, with the too dense and by now super super dry muffins Stiles had made the day before also split, they stared across the table at Cora. 

“What?” She mumbled through a mouthful of roast beef sandwich, licking a glob of fancy mayonnaise from her wrist. 

“Nothing,” Scott sighed and bleakly dunked a nugget in ketchup. 

Stiles shoved a muffin in his mouth and squinted suspiciously at the bare remains of Cora’s three sandwiches, package of chips and salad that had been liberally sprinkled with bacon. Eating that much in one sitting was unnatural, he decided, and mentally ticked on another mark in the Cora Hale is a Werewolf file. 

He chewed and thought about what she would think of all the drying flowers scattered around his house. Whether, if she was a werewolf, she could smell it on him. 

Probably not. 

“I’m going apple picking tomorrow,” Cora declared. 

Stiles hummed. “Yeah, have fun with that.”

“I probably won’t,” Cora said airily and inhaled the last bite of her sandwich. 

“Why wouldn't you?” Scott asked. “I mean, I’ve never picked anything, but it sounds fun.”

Ah no, Stiles thought as a cloud of smug wafted over Cora’s face. That was fucking bait, and poor Scotty just took a big honking chomp of it. 

“I was hoping you’d say that,” the maybe-wolf who was currently looking like a cat with a handcrafted feather boa said. “You want to come with? Its only me and my sister. And brother, I guess. If we can get him out of bed.”

Scott slid a sidelong glance at Stiles. It was more subtle than his usual attempts at stealth but Cora was still obviously following it, resting her chin on her crossed arms as she watched them. 

“You want to go?” Stiles asked. Scott grinned. “Well, your mom would probably say yes.”

“And your dad?” Scott whispered. Loudly. 

Stiles smiled and nodded because his dad would definitely say yes, if Stiles asked him, which he wouldn’t. “Anyway, I don’t have to go. You can go by yourself.”

Scott frowned. “Dude.”

“Yeah, thats fair.” They were mutually each other social anxiety crutches and it would be a dick move to abandoned his bro to the tender mercies of a bunch of strangers. Who might or might not eat people every full moon.

“Awesome! We’ll pick you guys up at eight.”

“Okay, fine, but where are we going?” Stiles demanded. It was (literally) the very least he could do before rolling off with strangers. Paying lip service to his police officers son upbringing. 

Damn, his mom would be lecturing his ear off right now. 

Thankfully, Melissa would be asking a whole lot of questions on Scotts behalf. Stiles had never known her to let her son out of her sight unless it was in the company of people she had already put the fear of God and motherhood into. 

In tandem, Scott and Stiles finished the last of their respective nuggets and nodded at Cora. 

Her grin was slow and terrifying and festooned with a single piece of soggy lettuce. 

Stiles left the house at seven, leaving his dad sleeping in the living room (again) with a note about where the lasagna was and how long to nuke it. He had also imprisoned the The Book and stuffed it under his bed, pillowcase tied to one leg. He’d ignored the silent sense of sulking and trotted off without a backwards glance. 

He’d still left a nice layer of now dried and crushed aconite along the perimeter of the first floor. 

He left his bike in the garage and jogged to Scotts house, charging through the clouds of his own breath. It was still early October but the mornings were disgustingly cold. Stiles had had to leave his preferred hoodie at home for an actual jacket. 

Backpack thumping between his shoulders, Stiles tucked his thumb into his pocket to feel the tiny baggie of of flower petals. It was only a little, most left at home, but considering the company he was keeping he was fully prepared to make do. He’d also unearth his mothers jewelry case and helped himself to as many silvery seeming things as possible. His back pockets were stuffed with chains and rings. So, if any werewolf made the poor decision to bite his butt, they were in for a an unpleasant surprise. 

He wished he could wear them on his neck instead, but that would be a little too obvious. 

Scott was already seated on the front porch, open door framing him as he clutched his own backpack in his lap. Through the door Stiles could just make out Melissa wandering from kitchen to living room, cradling an enormous and enormously ugly mug, nose all but pressed into the steam. Tea, probably, since she was once again trying to cut back on the coffee intake. 

“Hey!” Scott called and scooted to make room for Stiles on the narrow step. Stiles threw himself into the space and knocked their shoulders. 

“Hey.”

“Think its going to be fun?” Scott asked. Stiles shrugged. 

“I don’t know.” Personally, he thought it probably wasn’t. 

Melissa stepped onto the porch, mismatched socks and messy hair. Her personal mug had been exchanged for two smaller ones and she squatted down to hold them over them, forearms braced lightly on the top of their heads. “Cocoa?”

Stiles beamed. “Obviously yes! Thanks.”

“Thanks mom.”

A thick layer of half melted marshmallows covered the top and Stiles wasted no time in slurping as many as possible, squishing them against the roof of his mouth and hissing at the heat. Melissa sighed but let him be. She was a great believer in learning through doing. 

“Sure you don’t want to wait inside?” She asked. 

“No, this is fine,” Scott said. 

Stiles and Melissa exchanged a glance over his head. 

Stiles knew what she was thinking. The last time Scott had gone out with other people it hadn't been pretty and, for all it had been almost two years ago, still bothered him. Getting mercilessly teased and then left behind could do that to a guy, apparently. 

Personally, Stiles thought it wouldn't have been so bad if Melissa had been the one to pick him up, and not his douchebag dad. 

But this time Stiles would be there and Scotty would have fun if Stiles had to break every bone in the Hales bodies. 

Eventually a semi familiar car rolled to a stop on the street with a crunch of gutter leaves. Bumper stickers from various states were stuck haphazardly over the back, a recent addition after Laura’s monthlong road trip post graduation. 

Stiles spotted something else that was new and shaded his eyes as he tried to make it out. 

A little metal ball dangled off the tow hitch, and as the engine cut out he could just barely make out a soft chiming. A bell?

The doors opened and Cora spilled out, a leather jacket three times her size flapping as she moved. Laura Hale jogged around from the front seat, grinning wide and tucking aviator sunglasses into the neck of her purple Nirvana tshirt. 

“Hello, Mrs McCall!” She called brightly, politely walking up the pathway and not charging over the lawn like a mannerless thug (or in this case Cora). 

“Laura. Nice to see you again.”

Stiles looked between the two. He hadn't known they knew each other. Paranoia made him suspicious, but considering Melissa was nurse and therefore came into contact with a lot of different people all the time, he tried not to bristle. He did watch carefully as Laura came up and leaned over them to shake Melissa’s hand. 

“My mom says to thank you for letting us borrow your kid.” She smirked down at where Cora was gently wrestling Scott to his feet, whispering at him. “Cora wouldn't shut up about how much she wanted them to come.”

“Liar,” Cora snapped, but didn't give anymore attention to the adults beyond that. 

Unfortunately, Cora managed to herd them to the truck, leaving Melissa and Laura to talk alone.

Stiles was already halfway in the car, Cora pushing from behind, when he realized there was someone in the front seat. He nearly fell right back out again. 

Derek Hale was slumped in the front, arms crossed and head down, looking like he’d rather be six feet under than there.

He looked… well, shitty really. Thin and kind of greasy, big bags under his eyes and patchy almost stubble. When Stiles continued staring well past the appropriate point, the guy stiffened and turned slowly to face him. 

“What?” He snapped in a guttural voice.

“Nothing,” Stiles chirped and scrambled onto the seat, Cora grumbling behind him. “You’re just looking like shit, is all.”

Derek frowned harder and blinked and this time sounded confused rather than murderous. “What?” 

Stiles shrugged. “Well its true.”

“It really is,” Cora agreed, sitting in the middle and already belted in while Scott looked between all of them nervously. Stiles smiled at him. “You are kind of gross.”

“I didn't say gross.” Stiles rolled his eyes, and continued emphatically. “I meant, you look tired dude.”

Derek just looked at him with the expression an eighty year old widow would look at the tattoo festooned grandchild she hadn't previously known about. A sort of disbelieving disapproval. 

Stiles waved awkwardly. 

“Hi, I’m Stiles.”

With a grunt and a last narrow eyed up and down, Derek looked back out the windshield. 

Yeah, Stiles thought wearily. This was going to be fucking awesome.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! I have no idea what I'm doing! Ha! Hahahaha.  
> Ugh.   
> Anyway! Thank you all for the nice comments and the understanding. My condolences to all of you who were in my shoes previously. I am now a member of MIA WIPs and I'm sure we all hate it equally. Amen.   
> So, even though I lost all the updates I wrote before, I have now rewritten some of them. And they've grown. A lot. Like weeds, coming back even meaner and bigger than before. With thorns of angst.   
> Comment if you're inclined to do so, and I hope you enjoyed


	10. Chapter 10

The drive was short but not one Stiles had ever been on before. It was off the south side of town, past the more spread out houses that couldn’t decide whether to be rural or suburban. Scott was shocked and elated to see three goats eating someones lawn. 

Stiles spent most of the drive sneaking very stealthy looks at the backs of two teenagers heads. Laura’s was continually bopping along to the old rock music playing from the speakers (which were super quiet? Wasn’t it supposed to be blaring) and sending quips at her brother. Cora kept trying to drag Stiles into conversation but Stiles only grunted and eventually she gave up. 

Derek was silent. Hunched up in the front, lanky legs drawn up onto the seat and hood pulled up, he looked like the star of some cheesy teen drama undergoing a tragic story arc. 

Stiles watched all of them and wonder which, if any, were werewolves. 

Soon enough they turned down a dirt road. The forest closed in on either side, getting closer and closer until it such a tight fit the branches scraped against the side of the car. It was…

Well. Fuck it was creepy. Deserted dirt road, forest all around, going progressively downwards. This had all the hall marks of a bad horror movies and Stiles was getting concerned. Were they about to be sacrificed or something? Where they going to be, like, eaten? 

He tucked a hand in his pocket and wound a silver chain around his fingers, licking his lips and eyeing the locked doors.

“You okay?” Cora asked. “Gonna barf?”

That was actually a really good excuse to get them to pull over. He’d counted the turns they’d taken since pulling off the road of civilization, not that he’d really needed to considering there had been no other roads attached to this one. If they pulled over and let Stiles out, he could grab Scott and make a run for it. 

“Uh, yeah, maybe,” he said, voice high and cracking. Scott leaned around Cora to look at him with concern. Cora just frowned and looked at him weirdly. 

“Thats fine, we’re almost there,” Laura called from the front seat. They went over a particularly enthusiastic pothole that sent them all briefly levitating and Scott yelped. “Hold on tight!”

With a tortured rumble of the engine, Laura gunned it and they shot forward, out the shadowy trees into blazing sunlight that had Stiles hissing like a totally different creature of the night. 

They slowed down and the road became smoother as Laura chirped, “We’re here! Barf away, boys.”

Blinking, clutching the chains tighter, Stiles peered warily out the window.

It was… not as creepy as expected? Or at all, really. 

They were cupped into a little bowl like valley, driving up a wide driveway of gravel to an A frame cabin painted a bright yellow. The front yard was fenced in with a mishmash of different fencing, from picket to chicken wire to regular old chain link, and the enclosed area was full of over grown pots and giant bushes and flowers, everywhere. There were at least a dozen glass dangly decorations and wind chimes hanging from the front porch. 

He looked out the other window as they rocked to a gentle stop.

A barn, all grey wood and sagging roof, ivy eating up up one side. A huge flock of geese that were already converging on the car, wings spread as they hissed. And beyond that was an orchard. So that was true, at least.

“Ta dah!” Laura said, jazz hands waving. “Welcome to the Haavik farm. Hop on out.”

“Uuuh,” Scott said, looking through his window at the hissing herd of feathery death tapping angrily on the car door with dull and oddly unsettling pings of beak on metal. Stiles met his eyes with a grimace. He didn’t want to brave that either. 

“I think we’re good here, thanks,” he said. Cora scoffed. 

“Babies. Just show them whose boss and they’ll leave you alone.”

“Um.” A goose met his eye, opening its mouth wide and revealing fricking teeth, good God, where those teeth on its tongue? What the hell? “I’m pretty sure they are the boss.”

“Boooys,” Cora drawled disdainfully and climbed over Scott, popping the door open over his heartfelt but kinda of unintelligible pleading noises. Then she bounced out, spread her arms and snarled into the faces of the devils flock. 

They turned tail in a cloud of feathers, leaving only flattered spatters of shit on the gravel. 

Yeah. Werewolf. 

Jacket slipping off one shoulder, she spun to face them and flipped her ponytail sassily. “See? Easy.”

“Yeah, sure, okay,” Stiles squeaked and rolled out the other door, Scott clutching the back of his shirt and following. 

The sound of the wind chimes filled the air. Most of them were wood, a soft clickety click with every little breeze. The turquoise front door of the cabin opened. 

A little woman with long, shit hair and skinny long limbs leaned in the doorway and stared at them. Her eyes swept over Cora, still sauntering over the newly conquered territory of the driveway, Laura winding between the weeds and pots of plants towards the front porch, Derek still slumped in the front seat like a sulky sack of potatoes and Stiles and Scott still all but plastered to the side of the car. 

She smiled slowly. 

“Heya, Tove!” Laura wound around the last cracked pot of purple flowers (not aconite) and leapt the three steps up onto the porch. It thumped beneath her weight, windcimes clacking together freely above the rails. “Hows business?”

“The bees are disturbed,” Tove replied in a sweet, girlish tone that didn’t match her age at all. “But then again, when aren’t they?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Laura said. Tucking the thumb of one hands into her front pocket, she jerked the other back at Scott and Stiles. “These are the new kids. Thats Scott and that’s Stiles. Guys, this is Tove Haavik, queen of the county’s farmers market and bee whisperer.”

“Hi.” Scott waved shyly. Stiles grinned against the sun and waved more enthusiastically.

“Nice to meet you. Your house is awesome.”

Tove smiled. “I agree.”

“The flock of demons takes something away from the first impression though, I gotta be honest. Like, not the best ambassadors of goodwill.”

Wispy white eyebrows rose above dark, dark brown eyes. Her smile was almost as white as her hair with slightly crooked teeth. “They are a deterrent, not a welcoming committee.”

“In that case, they’re great.”

Laura snorted. “Whatever. Are the apple crates still by the orchard?”

“Yes.” Closing the door behind her, Tove walked through the front yard. Somehow, despite taking the same route Laura had, it seemed like a straighter shot. “The ladders are also there.”

“Awesome,” Stiles muttered to Scott, who shook his head with a grimace. Still not keen on heights then. 

Bypassing the two of them completely, Tove marched to the car and opened the passenger door. One hand on the roof of the car, the other curled over the top of the door, she peered down. “Well? Are you here to work or not?”

Derek scowled at her and slunk deeper into the seat. “I don’t want to.”

“Does that matter?” Tove asked, bland as rock hard dry bread. 

Stiles watched the pair watch each other and cocked his head. 

Tove was a tiny little person that looked like a light breeze would send her fluttering off like the goose feathers already fluffing off down the driveway. Frail, his grandma would have said. But from the way Derek was avoiding her eye and mumbling, Stiles was willing to bet she pretty terrifying. 

Cora popped up beside him. 

“Come on, I’ll show you the orchard. Its kind of neat.” 

“Why would it see neat?” Scott whispered, already obediently trotting behind her as she jogged towards the barn, the goose fleeing even further as she advanced. 

“Cause its old. Tove said some of the were planted by that Johnny Appleseed guy. Or from, like, seeds from the trees he did plant. Anyway, they’re super old and tough so you can climb them.” Stopping under the nearest one, she grinned at them. “Watch.”

Jumping, she snagged a branch and curled herself up, swinging to straddle it and then stand. Stiles hid his envy at how fricking cool that had been by smirking at her and asking, “Didnt you say you probably wouldn’t have any fun?”

“Shut up,” she replied. “Look, you can walk from branch to branch.”

She demonstrated. Leaves and apples dropped to the grass beneath and a cloud of gnats rose from the apples already rotting on the ground. Cora really was determined to disturbed all forms of wildlife around, wasn’t she?

Straddling her newest and slightly lower branch, she reached down. “C’mon, give me your hands. I’ll help pull you up.”   
She was grinning, half already escaping her ponytale, freckles less obvious than usual with how flushed her face was. She looked happy.

Stiles smiled back. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all. 

Dropping to one knee he licked his fingers together and knocked them against Scotts knee. “Here, you go first I’ll give you a boost.”

“Are you sure?” 

“Yeah, totally, I’ve always wanted to try this. It looks cool in movies.”

“It does,” Cora agreed.

Scott beamed. “Okay. But I’ll do it for you next time.”

Stiles laughed. “Duh. You better.”

By the time Laura, Tove and a sulky Derek arrive, they were already several trees away, apples plummeting around them. 

“I’m all sticky and gross and sweaty,” Stiles complained, dropping dramatically onto the poorly spread out blanket Laura had half heartedly supplied. 

“And that’s different from usual how?” Cora sassed. 

Stiles squinted at her. “Are you sure you want to start that, miss Fall-Into-Rotted-Fruit.”

“Yeah, that was kind of disgusting,” Scott agreed. He clapped once, grinding his palms together and quietly said “Squiiiiiiish.”

Cora scowled. “That wasn’t my fault. If you hadn’t distracted me—“

“Me?” Scott said with wide eyed and only partially bullshitting innocence.

“Yes, you! You were the one telling us to race—“

“That was my idea,” Stiles interrupted gleefully, sharing a conspiratorial looked with Scott, who tried to disguise his giggles with a fake sneeze. It didn’t work very well. 

They were full of apples and cold well water and the sun was burning hot overhead. Stiles lay back on the blanket and stared at the scraps of blue sky through the green leaves, their browning edges made metallic by the sun. 

It was quiet and became even quieter as Cora escorted Scott to the house and the bathroom therein. 

Derek was slumped under a tree several yards away. Where Laura had disappeared to was a mystery; as soon as the three kids were fully occupied, she’s vanished and hadn’t been spotted since. According to Cora, who had asked Derek, the teenager was now officially in charge. And judging by the look on his face when he admitted it, was not happy about it. 

Without Scott next to him, Stiles became bored in minutes and sat up to stare at the only other person in sight. 

Stiles tried very hard not to think about the Hales. Usually it was easy enough; he didn’t want to think about all those dead people, and how the ones who were originally supposed to be dead were alive. He’d stalked death and then conned it. That wasn’t something that let you sleep well at night. 

But he still remembered it all. He remembered Kate and he remembered Derek and how they’d looked together. How he’d looked at her like she was the most beautiful, wonderful thing in his life. How her dirty fingers had looked wrapped in his. 

Honestly, that was one of the parts Stiles hated thinking about most. It made his skin crawl. 

He didn’t even want to empathize enough to know how Derek must feel. 

Clambering to his feet, Stiles tuck his hand in his pockets and sauntered across crunchy grass and around soggy apple, gnats poofing into little clouds as he disturbed them. 

Derek watched him approach, scowling. 

“What do you want?”

Stiles hummed. Trees were much nicer to look at than murder eyes so he tilted his head back and shrugged. “Just bored. Aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Derek growled and oooooh boy, that did not sound like a human version of a growl. 

Hindbrain dancing in pants wetting fear while waving Abort! Abort! flags, Stiles laughed a high pitched, fake sounding laugh and dropped to his butt. Because he wanted to sit, obviously, not because his legs were suddenly jelly or anything. 

“Yeah, cool, me too! Bored. So boring. Yeah. Cool.”

His heart flicking heart, holy shit, not even Talia scared the pants off him in so few syllables. 

Face squished in a constipated looking grimace, Derek coughed. “Are you okay?”

“YEp, yeah, yep, super. I’m great, how are you?”

Derek frowned. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Crap. Apparently Stiles still had a ways to go before his bullshitter skills were any good. He was disappointed in himself and the world in general. At least the adrenaline was leaching away. 

Slowly, his heart went back to its normal soggy thumping instead of wildly knocking on his ribs like a salesman on speed. He carefully, attention on the definitely werewolf that had just growled at him, eased back onto his hands. Slouching and staring up at the dimpled butt ends of apples, he sighed. 

“You know what? I don’t even know. Life is just really shitty and weird and so am I. Theres probably some sort of correlation between the two, but who cares?”

There was silence for a long moment. Just the buzzing of insects and the distant, sibilant hissing of geese. 

“So… youre okay?”

Stiles snorted and smirked and spouted the same lie he’d been saying for the past several years. “I’m okay.”

Derek just looked at him. Bags under his eyes, overlong hair hanging stringy in front of his bloodshot eyes. Werewolf or no, he was rough looking, and Stiles was well used to the appearance of someone circling the drain. He saw it every day, could pinpoint it from a dozen yards away. He cocked his head.

“Are you okay?”

Something twisted violently over Derek’s face. He looked like he’d been stabbed a dozen times in the space of a word, been gutted and left oozing. He laughed and it was sharp and awful. Just a high, single yip of a sound that had Stiles wincing.

“Oh yeah.” Grinning without humor, Derek looked at him and for maybe the first time, Stiles felt like someone was actually seeing him. It should have felt more unnerving than it did. “I’m just fine.”

And since Stiles knew better than to tempt karma by being a flat out hypocrite, he didn’t call out that super obvious lie. Instead, he pulled an apple out of his pocket, one of the interesting ones with dents and weird lumps on it that he was planning to take home, and waggled it. 

“Excellent. Want an apple?”

And surprising, he apparently did. 

Eventually Cora and Scott came back, loaded down with brownies (“Are they… special?” Stiles had whispered, sniffing at one. Cora had smacked him. “No!”) and gallon of milk with four solo cups stacked on top. Derek apparently could not be tempted, and the neat apple Stiles had given him wasn’t actually eaten. It was just constantly rolling between his hands like a stress ball, which, okay, Stiles could understand that. All those lumpy parts were cool and he would have done the same thing if he thought about it. 

After that they actually got to the business of picking apples instead of monkeying through the trees. Stiles and Scott shared a ladder and the responsibility of climbing it, taking turns with one hold the bottom. Cora just sat on a branch and tossed her higher picks into a bin beneath her. Stiles didn’t think that was the way you were supposed to harvest apples, but he wasn’t going to say anything. At least she was leaving them alone and not using them as target practice. 

By the time the Laura reappeared, clothes damp and shoes in her hands, to call them back to the car, Scott and Stiles had filled up three tubs, Cora was still messing around with her first, and Derek was asleep. 

“Okay, guys, time to go!” She watched them drag the tubs to the edge of orchard as she sat in the front seat of her car, tying her shoes. Through the jungle of the front yard, Stiles could just make out Tove on her front porch. 

“What do we do with these, then?” Stiles asked, gesturing at the tubs full of apples and not a few leaves. “Just leave them here?”

“Yeah. Tove will drive them to the farmers market tomorrow morning.” Cora looked between Stiles and Scotts three bins and her own barely full one and winced. 

Stiles laughed at her. “Yeah. Take that.”

“Its not my fault, I hate picking things! Hunting is so much more fun, God.”

“You go hunting?” Scott asked, face scrunched up in disgust. Probably thinking about all the trips his dad forced him to go on. Stiles had seen him cry when he was forced to gut a fish, yet another in the long, long line of things Stiles was going to someday kick that dickhead’s balls for. 

Cora froze. “Uh. No? Sorta of? Like,” her eyes skated off Stiles, “not technically. I only go with my family sometimes, to watch.”

Oh ho ho. Another person worrying about his narcing to his dad. Though he didn’t know why she was worried; its not like the sheriffs had much to do with Fish and Game, and he knew that her family got a new license for hunting each year. Not like they were poaching—

Oh. Shit. Maybe they were. Wolves liked to… hunt… and stuff. 

Stiles decided not to think about it, slinging an arm over Scotts shoulder and knocking them off balance and coincidentally further from Cora. 

“Whatever. Hunting is waaaaay over rated. And fishing. Remember the last time dad took us fishing?” Stiles asked Scott shaking him a little, just enough to make the tight look go from his eyes. “With all the bugs?”

“Yeah. We caught tadpoles,” Scott said, a grin making his lopsided face even lop-ier. Stiles shooting him again, this time for no reason and Scotts elbowed him. 

“Yeah and mom drove us back so we could let them go again.” It had been when she still had more good days than bad. 

“Didn’t catch any fish though,” Scott said. 

Stiles snorted. “Nope. Not any.”

“Kind of pointless, then,” Cora said sassily. 

Gravel crunched beneath them as they trotted to the car. Laura lounged back, smiling at them, but her attention was fixed over their heads. Watching Derek, probably, but Stiles decided not to obviously turn around to check. Tove was a bit more interesting anyway. 

Still on the porch she held cup of lemonade, or at least something yellow, between her hands, wrist resting on the porch railing. She was so short she didn’t even have to lean down on it. She was watching them and Stiles found himself watching her back. 

Living in the middle of woods, miles and miles away from the rest of the world, in a dinky little cabin, with a wild weird front yard were all definite indicators of being a little… strange. But Stiles knew a lot of strange people. He’d been related to strange people. He was strange people— person. 

Tove wasn’t strange. Not the way most people were, with little quirks, little tics, who saved stacks of newspapers or thought certain colors were evil. She was strange they way cats were strange in the middle of the night, the way birds were strange when they sat quiet on powerlines and watched you without moving. She was a scary kind of strange that had his skin feeling funky and electric. 

But he wasn’t scared of her. The Hales, who didn’t seem strange at all at first glance, scared him way more than Tove. She felt…

She felt familiar. 

On the porch, rim of her cup resting against her chin, she grinned at him. 

“You. Come here.”

Stiles jabbed a thumb at his chest, eyebrows raised. ‘Me?’ He mouthed and she crooked a finger. 

“You.”

“Don’t worry, she’s nice,” Scott whispered loudly, with the certainty of someone who had been bribed by brownies. 

Stiles didn’t think she was. Nice, that is. She looked too tough to be just nice. 

Still, he carefully picked his way through the bushes and pots and random large rocks covered in moss until he stood underneath the porch rail, looking up at her. 

The lines on her face looked soft. Like her skin was a bunch of soft tan velvet, worn thin and crumpling. Her eyes were eerily dark against the whit oof her hair, the honey milk of her skin. Big discs of black and brown and muddy green. 

Her teeth were very white when she grinned. 

“What was your name again?”

“Stiles?” Stiles said warbled and then cleared his throat. “I mean, I’m Stiles.”

“Hmm.” She took a sip of her drink. It was indeed lemonade. 

“What, uh, did you want?”

“How many crates?”

Stiles scratched the back of his neck, shooting a quick, confused look back at Scott. Scott gave him a thumbs-up, which was supportive but unhelpful. “What?”

“How many crates did you fill?” She repeated. 

Ah. “Three. Cora almost did one.”

“Did she?” Tove drawled, shooting a quick look over his head. Stiles swore he heard a curse. 

And because Stiles was not a saint and was in fact a gremlin, he smiled guilelessly and punted his newest friend further under the bus. “Yep! Like, two thirds of the way.”

Tove smirked and shifted from one foot to the other. Took another sip. “Lovely.”

“Yes,” Stiles agreed. 

Setting the cup onto the railing, she fished around in the front pocket of her oversized flannel shirt and pulled out a small wad of bills, old receipts and a single straw wrapper that fluttered down like a sad feather, just brushing the front of Stiles jacket before he leaned back. And blew on it for good measure. 

“Here,” she said and waved two ten dollar bills under his nose. “Split it with Scott.”

Trying not to look too happy about that, Stiles politely plucked them from her hand and shoved them in his butt pocket, squishing them against all the chains. “Not Cora?”

“Not Cora.”

“Oh, come on!” Cora shouted. 

Stiles turned around to look at her, just in time to see Laura smack the back of her head while Scott clearly started asking ‘What? What?’ Because there was no way Cora could have heard them from way out by the car. 

Scratching at his suddenly itchy, cold skin, he turned a much sicker looking smile back at Tove, who nodded. 

“You’ll be fine,” she said, mysteriously. 

“I guess?” Stiles replied, confusedly.

“Have a nice day.” 

And with that, she stalked majestically over the creaking porch and shut the door behind her. 

“Okay. Well, you too, I guess.”

The wind chimes overhead clacked together. He looked up at them a little warily, but they were just bamboo. No creepy bird bones or anything here. 

Dismissed, Stiles wandered back tot he driveway through a different route. 

“Ready to go home?” Laura asked.

With a last look at the house with the creepy lady that was somehow less scary than the eleven year old girl he went to school with, Stiles stuffed his hands in his pocket and shrugged. With a chain twisting around his pinkie, he nodded. 

“Yeah. Lets go home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to tell you what Tove is. But I won't.


	11. Chapter 11

Sunday was a nothing day, the way it usually was. He would usually be able to run off and spend the day with Scott, but Melissa and he were having a together day. Church in the morning where Melissa was planning to harass all the old ladies into divulging the secrets to what to do with a sudden bounty of strangely shaped apples, and then the rest at home. Probably doing whatever the old ladies had advised. 

Stiles had been invited of course. But he practically lived in Scotts pocket and taking up his Mom & Me time seemed like a scummy move. So he wasn’t. 

Which left Stiles at home, his dad sleeping on the couch and sometimes watching TV, nursing the start of a cold that Stiles was desperately hoping to avoid. 

He’d been avoiding the Book because, even though he’d used it as the worlds worst Teddy Bear substitute. It was creepy and overbearing and creepy. He was willing to put up with the creepiness because he’d held out hope that it would be useful. That hope was being slowly smothered. 

He sat crosslegged at the end of his bed, chowing down on a bag of Skittles and staring at the Book propped against the headboard. 

He flicked a Skittle at the closed cover. It rebounded, bounced on the bed and Stiles scooped it up again, popping it between his teeth. 

Waste not, want not. 

“You know,” he sighed, “this relationship won’t work if there isn’t some give and take. Reciprocity, you know? And considering how patient and understanding I’ve been up to this point you really should just relent a little. Be cool.”

Stiles did not think about all the times he’d shaken, it cursed it, left it hanging in a closet and tried with every ounce of strength he had to doodle on the pages. Not even a little bit. 

The Book remained silent and inanimate. And ugly. 

Stiles hadn’t noticed at first but the book was definitely making a few cosmetic changes. He didn’t exactly approve, but what was he supposed to do? But the fact the cover was changing from neat looking red leather to what was literally pealing, scratchy bark, well, it wasn’t a step up, that was for sure. 

“Look. I have a fuck ton of werewolves dogging my butt,” heh, dogging, “and I really need to know if they’re going to go all spooky scary stabbington during the full moon and come form my liver or whatever.” 

Silence. 

“You're an asshole,” Stile muttered and dragged it into his lap. 

The spine was stiff and every time he cracked it open bits of bark broke off and fell everywhere like pokey dandruff. But it still opens, which is good enough. 

More fuzzed out pages. Something about scales. Flowers. Flowers. Flowers. Cats? Cats, huh. Neat. 

Roots. You can poison people with the tops of potato plants? Wow. Hibernation. Bugs. Snails and a recipe for them, Christ on a crispy cracker, no. Fairies? They actually took teeth? Crap.

Flipping through the pages, wind blowing through the crack he’d left in the window, Stiles yawned. 

Barriers. Flo—

“Barriers? Aw yeah, finally some good content, thank you.”

Mountain ash barriers were deceptively simply and, with the right kind of motivation behind them, simply deceptive. If properly erected, maintained and guided, they could gently turn things away instead of outright repelling them. And it only required one ingredient and one persons will and one source of… magic. 

He has magic. Probably. Considering the fact death kind of pops out of the general scenery for him, it seems like the mostly likely conclusion. Whether its the kind of magic that can be used for anything, though. Thats the question.

He sits, the Books edges digging uncomfortably into the tops of his thighs, scratching bits of bark off the cover distracted. 

He doesn’t think about what he is. What his mom was. It… hurts, thinking about it. Acknowledging it. It was something they shared, more than a secret, something that made them. He’d never considered it weird or strange or wrong before, because his mother had more weirdness in her than Stiles did, mathematically speaking, even if she didn’t have freaky death vision. 

But when she was gone it suddenly felt like it was wrong. Some part of him wasn’t human. Wasn’t a person. It was lonely. It was terrifying to look around and not see a single person who was like him. To look back at what had happened to his mom and wonder if it was because she wasn’t human either. Which led to wondering if that would happen to him next. 

He tried not to think about it because when he did he’d think about how his mother had screamed blank faced at nothing, seemed to grow stronger and stranger and meaner each day, until she wasn’t even his mom anymore, wasn’t even human. 

The Hales were scary the way bears and snakes were scary. 

His mother was scary the way monsters were.

But even now, he’d rather have that monster back, than be a monster alone. 

He pulls himself out of the Pit of Despair eventually. After doing the laundry, forcing a sandwich down his dads throat and taking a nice scenic bike ride around the empty lot one block down. 

But he eventually does, which is all that matters!

With the Book propped open and angled to see how a proper information providing object should behave, he goes trawling the internet for what he needs. 

Its fun, really. Hard not to veer off course in order to research whatever new thing his original research had unearthed. It was easier now that he had an actually goal besides fulfilling his curiosity. 

Eventually he found a provider. On Etsy. 

You really could get anything on there. He doesn’t even want to know what breast milk jewelry is a thing. That is one topic he has zero interest pursuing. 

There is a lot of stuff on the provider he eventually settles on. Dried mushrooms, seeds, lots and lots of dried herbs. And, of course, mountain ash. 

95% purity, according to TheWoodsAwaitThee from Sacramento. The remaining 5% was a mixture of honey dust, white mica, and garlic. 

Stiles looked at the slightly moldy clove on his windowsill. He knew garlic was important. 

In the end he spends a hundred and sixteen dollars on on two pounds of mountain ash, ten packets of aconite seeds, one ounce of powdered aconite and two boxes of handcrafted hazelnut chocolate candy shaped like fat octopuses. 

That last was an accident. Honestly. 

After that, all that’s left is to wait. 

School is surprisingly better these days. Last month Stiles only bothered dragging himself out of bed in order to see Scotty, only really paid attention to anything that happened at school when it involved Scott and only kept his grades up in order to be in the same grade as Scott next year. 

He didn’t know why it was better now. Nothing had changed really, except for Cora, but considering he still didn’t want to be around her too much that should have made things worse, not marginally better. 

Who cared though? Better was better.

Cora and Scott shared a class, leaving Stiles on his own with only Jackson and crew for entertainment. Which was no longer as entertaining as it had once been, because is was now only Jackson, with no string of dancing monkeys behind him. Well. There was Danny, but Danny would never be anybodies monkey. Usually Jackson just sat scrunched up and sour faced without saying anything, kind of like Derek had. Which made Stiles feel kind of sorry for him by association, which sucked. 

Danny noticed him staring and frowned back. Stiles waggled his fingers and smiled as obnoxiously as possible. 

Disappointingly, his attitude did not result in a spitball war. 

Class ends and the teachers slumps down into her desk, exhausted and utterly down with preteens, letting them chatter and cram their supplies away without comment. 

Stiles had been constructing a pyramid out of all his books, pencils and the electric pink pony pencil sharpener, so his cleanup was taking longer. Most of the class had run out the door like water down a toilet, swirling off to points unknown. 

Shoving the last of the classes crumpled worksheets into his bag, Stiles slung it over his shoulder and wound through the desks. His was furthest up front and furthest from the door, because he was apparently ‘untrustworthy’ and ‘fucking escape artist’. Not his fault people were too unobservant to see a door open. 

Whistling Doctor Who, he jumped over the threshold and would have started walking if Danny hadn’t stepped in front of him. Stiles jerked to a stop.

“We need to talk.”

Stiles blinked. “No? Why?”

Danny sighed extravagantly, rolled his eyes and grabbed the free strap of his backpack to tug him along. In the opposite direction of where Cora and Scott would be waiting. 

Now, Stiles could get away. It wouldn’t be hard. Danny was stronger and way more athletic, but Stiles was meaner. Buuuuut…

Damn curiosity. 

He obediently let himself be tugboated away. 

Eventually they stopped at the library which was deserted as always, because it sucked. Most of the lights were off, the ratty yellow blinds closed but just off center enough to let in light. Settled on a duct tape repaired beanbag sat Jackson. 

Stiles groaned. 

“Whats this? Why are you sitting in the dark like some off brand Bond villain? If you start monologuing I swear I am going to take a flying leap out the window.”

Danny smacked the back of his head. “Shut up and listen.”

Stiles shrugged and listened. And listened. Aaaaand “Is someone going to say something? Cause if they aren’t, I can volunteer.”

Danny sighed and snapped “Jackson.”

“Fine! Fine.” Lunging out of his beanbag, which sucked in a whistling puff of air, Jackson slouched over. Stopping in front of Stiles, fists buried in the pocket of a hoodie that was too big and too ugly for Jackson to actually be wearing, he scowled. “Sorry.”

“What?” Stiles’ voice cracked and he cleared it while looking warily between Danny and Jackson. “What?”

Jackson glared at his shoes and scraped the toes over the threadbare carpet. “I said, I’m sorry. For saying that stuff about your mom.”

Stiles stared at him. He looked awful, even though all the swelling had gone down. There were still ugly yellow and green smears of bruising over his nose, under his eyes. He’d looked like a raccoon the first few days. Now he just look kind of dirty. 

“I broke your nose,” he mumbled incoherently. Jackson grunted. 

“Yeah.”

“I’m not going to say sorry for that.”

“Did I ask you to?” Jackson snapped, finally meeting Stiles’ eyes full on. 

“Ah. Good point.” 

They stood in uncomfortable silence. In his mind, crickets were chirping maliciously 

“Why?” He asked. 

Jackson frowned at him. “What do mean why?” 

“Why are you saying sorry now? You didn’t care before.”

Jackson huffed and crossed his arms. Shuffled from foot to foot. Glanced briefly at Danny, who walked over and knocked their shoulders together. He swallowed. 

“I feel… bad. About saying it. It was… it was horrible and I didn’t mean it and I’m sorry.” He took a big breath and met Stiles’ eyes and nearly shouted, “It wasn’t your fault even if your mom did kill herself.”

“Fuck.” Thumping back first against the door, Stiles’ cover his face and groaned. “Fuck. Not cool, c’mon, don’t just ambush me like that.”

He was not going to cry. He was NOT. 

“He actually means it, fyi,” Danny drawled. 

“Yeah,” Jackson grumbled. 

Stiles just breathed for a little while. 

He’d never thought Jackson would apologize, didn’t even think he knew what an apology was. And he hadn’t wanted one anyway. As far as he was concerned they were fairly even and if Jackson dared to say anything like it again he would get back at him again. Simple enough operating procedure. Good enough for Stiles. 

It was like a punch to the gut to get a real live apology. 

Compartmentalize, he sternly decided. That was the name of the game. Shoving the shivery, painful feeling in his gut down, he pasted on a grin and straightened up. He could freak out later. 

“Alright. Fine. I sort of kind of forgive you.” He frowned and thought about it for moment and then pointed at Jackson. “For what you said. I’m still not forgiving you for being a douche to Scott. Fuck you for that.”

Something quick and open and looking a lot like relief skated over Jacksons face before straightened up with the familiar sneer. “Whatever.”

Stiles sneered back. “Whatever.”

“I’m sorry about your mom,” Jackson growled, shouldering by. 

“I hope your nose is okay,” Stiles hissed back. 

“See you around, Stink-inski.”

“Only if you can see around that ego, Jacks-ass.”

“Ugh,” said Danny.

Splitting off in different directions, they went back to business.

When his order came Stiles was ready to vibrate out of his skin with excitement. Not anxiety, because that would be stupid and only chihuahua’s and gerbils were anxious and he was neither. 

He’d begged a raincheck on his plans with Scotty and like a boss Scott had let him. Stiles had already written a will and stuffed in the bottom of his sock drawer, and made sure that Scott would get all his cool stuff, but he pulled it out again to scribble in that he should get Stiles limited edition Batman figurine, because he deserved it.

Stiles had raced home as soon as school ended, arriving sweaty and out of breath, leaving his bike sprawled over the lawn. The package sat on the front porch. 

It was cute. Actual brown paper and string around the plain old shipping cardboard box. Stiles eagerly carted it into his room and ripped it open. 

Instead of packing peanuts or bubble wrap there was straw and he had thrown it all over the room before remembering that, hey, that would be hard to clean up. Shit. Oh well, whatever. The was a problem for future Stiles. 

Whoever had packed the box was good at their job, because the candy was at the top. Stiles was distracted from his mission and plopped on the bed to crack one open, gold tissue paper rustling. 

“Shit, how am I supposed to eat these?” He mumbled while stuffing one in his mouth. The chocolates were fat and shiny and definitely look like octopuses. He waggled one at the Book, where it was propped on a pillow. “Look at these things! They’re amazing.”

He ate another.

Chewing, ignoring the fluttering of excitement-not-anxiety in his stomach, Stiles carefully pulled out the glass jar of mountain ash. 

It was… well, grey. Powdery. The green tinted glass of the jar was prettier than it was. There was a little pop as he unscrewed the lid and the smell was strange. Like dead flowers and campfires and feathers. He couldn’t even smell the garlic. He swiped his finger through it, surprised at the softness of it. Like the baby powder his mom used. He rubbed it between his fingers and swallowed heavily. 

“Well. Better give it a shot.” He slanted a narrowed eyed look at the book. “All that stuff I read better be true. I could still see if fire would do anything to you. I like fire.”

Threat duly noted (he hoped) Stiles hoped off the bed and shoved his desk clear. 

He’d thought about what to do if everything worked. If he did have magic that could actually be useful. Just tossing powder around seemed dumb; how was it supposed to stay in place? The Book definitely said that the line had to be complete. If it was broken it was useless. So he’d thought about how to make it stick. Tape. Paint. Eventually he’d come up with a plan. 

Taking a milk jug full of already watered down craft glue from the floor under his desk, Stiles poured it carefully into a bowl. It oozed nicely and he snorted when it made a farting sound. 

Carefully, carefully, he spooned the mountain ash into the bowl. There were no instructions on how much to use, so he decided going whole hog was probably better than employing a conservative amount of bacon and scooped six heaping spoonfuls inside. 

The smell of the mountain ash did not pair nicely with the stench of the glue and he gagged as he mixed it together, grimacing at the ugly color it turned. It didn’t want to mix either, and he wound up spending a good ten minutes squashing pockets of dry mountain ash against the side of the bowl until it gave up and finally mixed together. 

Stiles groaned and flexed his wrist. Next time, he was a getting a mixer. That was awful. 

Bowl in hand, plastic paintbrush pilfered from arts and crafts at school behind his ear, Stiles went downstairs.

The house was empty and musty, the curtains covering the windows. It was cold too and Stiles wished he’d kept his socks on. His dad wouldn’t be back for two more hours, which hopefully was enough time for Stiles to… maybe do it. 

He looked at the bowl in his hands and frowned. It really did stink. He didn’t think his dad would notice, but he wasn’t sure how he would explain if he did. So he set the bowl on the coffee table and opened half the downstairs windows. It grew even colder. 

Then he got started. 

The glue spread pretty easy as Stiles painted it along the floor, right up against the trim. He had to twist and grind it into the carpet of the living room, but thankfully everywhere else was wood or tile. His knees were bruised to heck and back by the time he connected back to the starting point behind the kitchen door, line finally complete. 

Groaning loudly because no one was there to call him dramatic, he cracked he back and dropped onto his butt, staring at the grayish, brownish, blueish streak of glue and ash. 

Now or never, he cheered himself on. It didn’t work very well. 

What if this backfired somehow? What if it just plain didn’t work? What if it worked too well and he trapped himself inside the house, trapped his dad outside? Would he just be stuck there until he starved to death, only able to look out the window at his dad and all the emergency people and reporters and X Files agents that came to try and get him out? 

He chewed a thumb knuckle and curled up against the cabinets. 

Cora and Laura and Derek and Talia. They all seemed so nice. Not completely normal, but more normal than Stiles at least. Maybe they wouldn’t even care that he knew what they were. Maybe they’d even be happy to know he’d been the one to save them. 

But he could still see Talia ripping the guts out of full grown man, shrugging off bullets like raindrops. Remembered Betsana, clearly in the know and clearly capable and willing to coverup the truth for her husbands family. 

Loyalty like that, ruthlessness like that, he could understand it. He knew what it was like and how far he would be willing to go to protect his dad, Scotty, Melissa. He would be willing to do more than rip a person apart with his teeth. He couldn’t risk the Hales doing the same.

He went back to the line.

The glue was tacky against the tips of his fingers as he scooted them up against the edge, palms flat on the floor. He closed his eyes, breathed in the smell of glue, of mountain ash, of the milk he’d out on the counter the day before. 

He thought about his dad. How he walked through the doors, never stepping on threshold like Stiles did, always stepping over. How he turned around when he shut the doors, pushing them gently closed rather than slamming them behind him. 

He thought about Scott, about how they’d run through the house together, how they’d had a window climbing competition that resulted in Stiles falling out face first and busting his lip. About how Scott didn’t like closing the doors when he went to sleep, wanted them to open. 

He thought about Melissa, how she still had their house key on her keyring, with faded smiling face stickers Stiles had put on to let her know it was their key. How she’d come over every morning before work and every night before she went home while his mom was in the hospital and for months after she did. How she walked so quietly and shut the doors so carefully, like making a sound was wrong. 

He thought about how much he loved them and how much he wanted them with him, always with him, always right here. Safe and close and in sight. How he wanted this house to be safe for them. 

His fingers were burning but he didn’t really notice. 

He thought about how he wanted the house to be so safe nothing bad could ever come into. Nothing could ever hurt them while they were inside. How his mom had always checked the doors and windows twice at night, the both of them chatting and laughing as they made sure everything was safe. He thought about how his mom had made him always feel so safe, like nothing could get, nothing could happen, nothing could go wrong. 

He wanted that again. He wanted that. 

The smells changed. The glue was overshadowed by the growing, wet smell of the mountain ash, the flowery smell turning alive and sweet. His arms were spasming and his hands felt flayed open, turned inside out. 

He opened his eyes. 

The lined was gone. He could barely see the lumpiness of the glue, knew it was still there. But it didn’t look like it. 

Hands twitching, he tucked them under his arms and hunched against the floor, colder than he’d ever been, panting and whining at how much it hurt, how far away his body felt. How tired he was. He really was so tired. 

He lay down on the floor and peered blearily at the barely visible lumps. 

It was impossible to tell if it worked but somehow, in his gut, it felt like it did.

He closed his eyes, face sore from a clenched toothed grin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not like this chapter. I spent all day poking at it and eyeing it sourly and I still don't like it. 
> 
> Stiles does in fact know that it should properly be octopi, but that doesn't roll off the tongue. And no one can stop him for calling things whatever he wants, haha!
> 
> Hope you enjoyed, comment if inclined and have a good day/night!


	12. Chapter 12

“—-od, oh God, please no. Stiles. Stiles, honey, come on, wake up.”

It was very cold and Stiles was soooore. He grunted and batted at the hands holding too tight to his arms. 

“Oh thank God. Stiles, open your eyes. Come on, please. Please.”

And oh, that was his dad. Stiles’ eyes snapped open. 

They were on the kitchen floor, the windows dark. Apparently his dad had gotten home late again. That wasn’t good. Patting blindly at his dads arm, he scrubbed at his eyes with his other hand and groaned. 

“Stiles, what happened?”

“‘m just tired. When’d you get back?” 

“Why are you on the floor? Look at me, kiddo.”

It finally dawned on Stiles that hey, that was not a good tone of voice. That was actually a really awful tone of voice. Blinking gumminess out of his eye he squinted at his dad and felt his heart skyrocket. 

Ash pale and shaking, eyes huge, his dad was crouched over him. He looked impossibly huge and impossibly scared. 

“Dad?”

The sound he made was gutted and he dragged Stiles right off the ground and into his lap, folding around him completely. Stiles blinked into his dads uniform shoulder, felt the shaking in his hand as he cupped the back of his head and pressed him closer. 

“Dad?”

“What happened? Stiles, why were you on the floor?”

Stiles couldn’t see anything but uniform tan and shadows, but he was guiltily aware of the line of transparent ash only a few feet away. He curled his hands into the back of his dads shirt and shrugged. Or at least as much as he could when being held so tightly. 

It was weird. He’d wanted a hug just like this for so long but now that he got it, it just felt awkward and he wanted it to stop. But he wanted it to never stop. His skin was so staticky and hot and everything was awful and muffled and—

He hugged back as tight as he could. 

“We’re going to the hospital.”

“What? No, dad, I’m fine!”

His dad stood, carrying Stiles up with him and walking straight through the kitchen so fast Stiles’ head spun.

“You were on the floor.” His dads voice was shaking. “I couldn’t wake you up.”

Stiles nodded against his shoulder and didn’t argue again. They both knew what it was like to see something like that. 

He never thought he’d be the one not he floor, though. 

Stiles sat in the lap of luxury (or rather, in the dubious comfort of a hospital bed) sucking on a root beer lollipop and shamelessly kicking his feet up on a stack of pillows. 

So far he had been weighed, gauged and surveyed by a doctor, a nurse practitioner and Melissa. Melissa who, was outside with his dad and had been for the past five minutes. 

Stiles watched them through the little window in the wall, sucking away at his sugar and trying to read lips. Melissa was briskly rubbing up and down his arms, maintaining eye contact even when she had to duck down to do so. Whatever she was saying it had his dad nodding shakily and finally calming down. 

It was a truly sucky feeling to be the one to put that look back on his dads face. Schooching back into the pillows, Stiles looked back at the muted TV. 

He’d listened when the being examined, so he knew that his temperature had been a little low, as had his blood sugar, and his reflexes weren’t great. He’d been bundled up in blankets and given a heating pad and pretty soon everything went back to baseline normal, so he wasn’t too worried. 

He’d said he hadn't eaten lunch and forgotten dinner. Everyone seemed pretty content to just write it off as just low blood sugar. Though the doctor had not so discreetly sent his blood off for testing of the drug type. Apparently not even eleven years olds could be trusted. 

All told he thought he was in pretty great shape considering. He thought he might spontaneously combust when he’d tried laying the line, but if all that happened was a little bit of fainting? He could live with that. Well. As long as it had worked. 

Though he was feeling like shit now that he knew how his dad would have reacted to finding Stiles jam splattered over the walls. He should have thought that through better. 

He would just have to be better at risk assessment from here on out. Dying now would be a dick move, and leave his dad all alone. 

The door groaned open. 

“Hey kiddo.”

“Hey dad.”

The chair by the bed squeaked as his dad eased into it, almost loud enough to drown out the popping of his spine. Crossing his arms, he stared at Stiles for a long moment and then sighed, dragging a hand down his face. “You feeling okay?”

Stiles nodded and slowly curled his legs upwards, until he could rest his chin on his knees. 

It was awkward. He didn’t know what to say. Sorry? Don’t worry? It won’t happen again?

He cleared his throat and scooted towards the edge of the bed. “Are… are you okay?”

His dad laughed. It wasn’t a very nice one, really, but it might have been he first he’d heard in months. In a year, even, and he found himself edging closer. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.”

“You don’t look good,” Stiles observed. 

“Neither do you,” his dad said with a smirk. 

Gasping, Stiles flopped a hand over his heart. “Dad! How rude! Making those sorts of comments to your own child! Where’s the support? The well-meaning compliments?”

“Have we ever done that?” 

Stiles thought about it and had to admit they hadn't. It was always brutal honesty tempered by cautious optimism and hugs. “I guess not.”

“Hmm.”

By now Stiles had his legs over the side of the bad. After a quiet few seconds, his dad reached out and looped a hand around his foot. Stiles jostled it lightly, heart exploding when his dad played along and smiled a very small, very tired smile. 

“Want to get something to eat?” 

Stiles’ stomached growled. Snorting, he slapped a hand over it and rolled his eyes. “I think that was a yes.”

“I think so too.”

Within twenty minutes they were signed out and on the road, Stiles wearing some supremely ugly hospital slippers because he’d been carried away without shoes, something he was more than happy to complain about at length. 

“Next time you decide to faint you better remember to put some on before hand,” was his dads unsympathetic reply. Stiles grinned and complained harder. 

“Where are we going?” Stiles asked when they drove past the diner. The heater was blasting plastic scented hot air into his face, because apparently his dad was afraid he would spontaneously develop a fatal case of hypothermia. He didn’t complain about it though, because he didn’t really mind. It might make him feel like the scum of the earth, but a tiny part of him was… glad? relieved? That his dad worried. 

He kind of thought that maybe he didn’t—

But obviously he’d been wrong, so whatever.

“I thought we’d go to Camilla’s.”

Stiles shoved himself to sit upright. Camilla’s was Beacon Hills only Mexican restaurant (At least, of the authentic variety) and was usually reserved for special occasions considering the price. 

“Tacos?” Stiles mumbled, mentally warring between said tacos and the more cost effective diner fair. 

“Yep,” his dad said and swung into the parking lot. 

It wasn’t crowded, thankfully, so Stiles and his ugly footwear were able to sneak in unnoticed by all but the hostess. They got a booth (Score!) and Stiles dug into the complimentary chips and salsa with glee, barely glancing up when the waitress came up. At least until she said with bright surprise “Deputy? Hey, I haven’t seen you around for ages!”

She was extremely pretty, round all over and with hip length black hair, and she was vaguely familiar. Stiles stared at her with a mouth full of half masticated chips and choked when she met his eyes and grinned. 

Shit. 

While he tried to swallow without dying, his dad kindly drew her attention away. 

“Hi Kath. How’ve you been?”

“Great! I finally moved out and started taking classes. Online, but you know, better that than nothing.” She laughed and fanned herself with the order pad. 

“Thats good. This is my son, Stiles. Stiles, this is Kath. She worked at the station for a little while.”

“Part time custodian.” Her voice dripped with amusement. “That means I took out the trash.”

“Someones got to do it,” Stiles mumbled. 

“And it sure wasn’t those guys,” she agreed and happily ignored his dads quiet sigh. “Anyway, what can I get you gentlemen?”

Stiles of course went with the classic tacos and coke, which is dad unoriginally copied, and while they were waiting Stiles finished off the chips. Like an angel, Kath reappeared with even more alongside their drinks. 

Blowing bubbled in his coke, Stiles eyed his dad over the table. “How was work?”

“Good.” Shifting the salsa closer to sTiles side, he frowned. “I actually need to ask you something about that.”

He stopped blowing bubbles. That did not sound promising. “Okaaay?”

His dad snorted. “Its not that bad. The sheriff asked if I could move my shift permanently to the weekends. I told him yes, since it pays a little better, but after…”

“After you found me on the floor like a dingus,” Stiles prompted. His dad sighed. 

“After that I don’t know if you should.”

“I think you should. I can just hang out with Scott no the weekends.” Like usual, he did not say. “And it would be neat having you at home when I go to school. We could have breakfast and stuff.”

And since his dad drank even more on weekends, maybe this would make him stop? Eh, Stiles could hope. 

“Yeah. That’d be nice.”

“Stiles?”

Fuck. 

Good vibes; dead. Optimism; reversed. The karmic debt he had just accrued through scaring several years off his dad was being paid now. With a smile that felt more like a wince, he turned around and waved unenthusiastically. 

Talia and Mathew Hale stood just behind them. 

His dad looked between Talia, who was smiling at Stiles, and Stiles, who was trying to avoid eye contact everyone.

“Good evening,” he said politely. 

“Good evening, deputy,” Mathew replied. He was looking bemusedly at Stiles. Stiles did not look back. 

“How have you two been?” Talia asked. The hostess was waiting politely a few feet away and watching as subtly as she could, which wasn’t very subtly at all. 

“We’ve been good. Yeah, great. How were the apples?” Stiles stuffed another fistful of chips into his mouth and stabbed himself in about dozen places when he closed it too fast. It hurt like a bitch and his eyes started watering.

“They were great. We made apple pies.” Sweeping her hair back, she leaned a hip against the table next to theirs. “Cora and Derek made you a pie, but there was a bit of accident. Also they didn’t have your address so its a raincheck on that.”

“Ah,” Stiles said faintly. 

“What apples?” His dad asked. 

Shiiiiiiiit……

Now all the adults were staring at him and his house of cards was officially crumbling. There was no abort option. Judging by the frowns growing on his dad and Talia’s faces he had to come up with something. 

“Ah, well, me and Scotty went apple picking with some people from school.” Cora was people, and Derek sort of counted. He was only a few years older, after all. “It was nothing.”

“When was this?” His dad asked. Talia was watching Stiles now, not frowning but definitely thinking big thoughts. 

Stiles plucked at his sleeves and shrugged. “Like, a few weeks ago.”

And once again performing an angelic service, Kath swooped down, scooting by the Hales with a perky “Oop, excuse me!” And dropping their plates in front of them. 

She eyed his drink. “A refill, honey?”

Stiles could have kissed her. “Yes, please. Thanks Kath.”

Thanks for my life, he could have said. 

“We’ll just let you enjoy dinner,” Mathew said and hook a hand through his wife’s elbow. She took a last, long look at Stiles (and his footwear, which he didn’t tuck out of sight quick enough) before allowing him to tug her away. “Have a good night.”

“You too, have a good nice— I mean a nice dinner and good night. Yeah, see you around, say hi to Derek.” Waving and hoping it didn’t look like he was waving them along, he exhaled heavily. Turning back to his dad and their plates of tacos he grinned and hoped desperately the subject was dropped. 

A long moment later, his dad sighed and picked up a taco. “Eat up.”

“Yessir, sir.”

The least surprising and most unproblematic part of the evening? The tacos were indeed delicious. 

Cora slammed her tray of macaroni on the table, thumped into the seat and said “I heard you went to the hospital.”

Scott choked and Stiles inhaled an unhealthy amount of milk, which burned his sinuses like exotic peppers as he tried valiantly not to die. It was ironic, or maybe just said, how much it stung. Milk was supposed to be soothing right?

“What the fuck Cora?” Stiles managed to wheeze. 

“You went to the hospital?” Scott asked, patting his back and looking one second away from fretting. Scott fretting was worse than any other kind Stiles had experienced; he had all the enthusiasm of a granny and none of the experience. It was always messy. 

“Yeah, kind of.” Stiles didn’t bother wondering why Melissa hadn’t already told Scott. It wasn’t Stiles' business and if Cora hadn’t spilled the beans it would have been any of Scott’s either. What really matter was how she knew in the first place. He scowled at her. “How’d even know about that?”

“My mom told me,” she said and steamrolled over the beginning syllable of Stiles demanded for how she knew. “What happened?”

“Nothing happened!” He didn’t feel bad for lying. Who would, with Cora? She had the kind of face that begged to be lied to after all. Or maybe that was just Stiles interpretation. “I had low blood sugar because I forgot to eat. They gave me a lollipop.”

“What kind?” Scott asked. 

“Bullshit,” said Cora.

“Root beer.”

Scott nodded. 

“Nice.” They exchanged a congratulatory fist bump. 

“Come on, tell me what happened.”

Stiles sighed heavily. “Look. I just did. I had low blood sugar. And its not any of your business anyway, so butt out.”

When she opened her mouth again Stiles scowled at her. She closed it with a grimaced and stabbed a noodle.

“Its not like diabetes though, right?” Scott whispered and Stiles flipped around to straddle the bench and stare at him. Scott was such a good bro.

Feeling warm and gooey inside, Stiles benevolently transferred his mini chocolate chip muffin to Scotts tray. “Nah. I forgot to eat lunch and then, uh, took a nap. Was all woozy and dad freaked out a little bit. Thats all.”

Scott gave it a moments thought and tucked his butterscotch pudding into the corner of Stiles’ tray. “You do that too much.”

“You guys suck,” Cora grumbled. 

Scott smiled at her but Stiles just ignored her. Over Scotts shoulder he could see Jackson and Danny and Lydia at a table together and when Jackson caught his eyes they sneered at each other. All was right with the world. 

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ms Speare and the vice principle with a tall guy walking the perimeter of the cafeteria. He was skinny, with faded blond hair and a lot of laughter lines, his white dress shirt rumpled and comfy looking. While Scott and Cora argued over the worthiness of muffins and brownies respectively, Stiles lazily watched the trio and waved when Ms Speare noticed him. 

“Who’s that?” He asked. Cora looked over her shoulder, lost interest and went back to eating. 

“New gym teacher I think.”

“Hmm.” 

The guy laughed at something, rocking back on his heels. With a shrugged he pulled one hand of his pocket and scratched the back behind his ear, head tilted sheepishly. 

Stiles heart plummeted into his shoes. 

Cora’s head snapped towards him. “Whats wrong?”

Stiles barely heard her. He was too busy watch the edge of the mans cuff fall down his forearm, revealing the dirty red streaks on his skin, darkening all his fingers like they were dipped in paint. He was almost surprised it didn’t leave a stain through his hair. 

“You okay?” Scott asked. 

“Yeah.” Dragging his eyes away before he could get caught staring, Stiles swallowed down something cold and bitter and shoved his tray away. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

The mans laughter carried over the cafeteria chatter as he walked out the door and Stiles shivered. 

Maybe he wasn’t okay after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh. This chapter just barely managed to happen. I have an ear infection AGAIN and its killing me. Blah.   
> Apologies for the slightly shorter chapter and the cliff hanger. Oops.   
> Even bigger apologies for the fact that I might not be updating as consistently for the next month. New schedule and general upheaval, so if I miss an update, thats the reason. Just wanted everyone to know I'm not abandoning this work, so don't worry!  
> I hope you all enjoyed and comment if inclined! Also, sleep and hydrate and have fun ~


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWs at bottom of chapter

Zahn Walther was forty-one, newly single and from Pennsylvania. A nice boy, according to the English teacher. Hot, according to the assistant lunch lady. Weird, according to Scott. 

Stiles was going with Scott. 

“He’s bad news.” The Book was open on the bed, propped up on a throne of pillows, one page a blurred mess, the other about bees. “I don’t want to jump to conclusions, you know, that never ends well on TV. But he’s definitely a murderer!”

The cork board his mom had gotten his when he was eight, which hadn’t been used since she’d confiscated the thumbtacks a week later, was propped against the legs of his desk on the floor. Scattered bits of craft paper littered the floor, markers and a scissors and scotch tape caged in his crossed legs. 

He’d seen a lot of murder boards. On TV and stuff, but disappointingly never in real life. Hid dad had told him they weren’t actual things, but Stiles lived in hope that he was wrong. 

His board was a Maybe Murder board and was coming along… okay. Sort of. 

“I need to learn how to hack things,” he mumbled at the book. The breeze coming through the open window flipped a couple pages. Lots of bats. Uncensored even. Stiles eyed it and sighed. “You spoil me.”

Back to the board. 

Creepy Kate was at the top, name scrawled in red gel pen on black paper. She was the one he had the most information on, pitiful though it was. So far he didn’t have evidence for much, but he thought he could extrapolate some stuff pretty accurately. 

1) She had impersonated a teacher, which meant that she had the credentials, which meant she either was in a fact a teacher, or had somehow fabricated an identity and background that would pass a background check. Which in turn meant that she had either a lot of money or really good connections.

2) The Creepy Old Grandpa Dude (written with plain old black sharpie on green paper, abbreviated to COGD) was probably in charge. It certainly seemed that way. What Stiles was supposed to do with that supposition he didn’t know, but he figures it would be important someday.

3) The Hales had not, as far as Stiles and his station snooping could tell, told anyone about Kate. Maybe because they were protecting Derek? Stiles would do the same thing if that was the case. Or maybe…. He tapped his pen against his chin and squinted at the board. Maybe they knew who she was and were planning to take care of the problem themselves. 

Which meant that maybe Stiles had someone to take any information he found out to. IF he found out any information. 

Maybe Walther was just a run of the mill serial killer? Maybe a soldier….? Though that didn’t track. He’d met several veterans at the station and though they all had some staining going on, it wasn’t anywhere close to Walther and Kate and COGD. 

Gnawing marks into the center of his current pen, Stiles glared at the board. It was full of nothing. Nothing and a whole lot of bullshit. He needed… needed something. If he could just figure out what the guy wanted, he could shunt the information off to the Hales and let it be their problem. He had more than enough trouble at the moment and only half of it was because of werewolves. 

Groaning, he flopped onto his back and looked defeatedly at the the Book. 

“You have any advice?” By the continued quiet, it did not and he huffed. “Right. Thanks for the support.”

He stared at the ugly pop-corning of his ceiling. 

What was really bugging him about this was Cora. She was the only Hale at the middle school, just like Derek was only one at the highschool. And Cora was a sport happy asshole, always happy to run everyone else into the dirt. 

And now Walther, who was probably definitely a murderer, was the gym teacher.

It made sense, strategically. A good looking, super interested and interesting adult in a position of power, in an area of particular interest. Cora was a relative loner, or at least she had been just a few weeks ago. His skin crawled just thinking about it and he shuddered. 

Well, that wouldn’t be happening with Scott and Stiles there. Wherefore Cora goes, there too goes the crew. 

And in Stiles personal opinion it was stupid to use the same strategy twice in a row. Dumb bastards. He’d crush them. 

Flipping the board, he hung it backwards on his wall, pleased once again that it was double sided. Secrets tucked away against the wall. Then he went downstairs to make dinner with his dad. 

Heck yeah, meatballs. 

Scott was easy enough to get on Stiles agenda. He didn’t even ask too many questions, just agreed to stick close to Cora when Stiles wasn’t there. 

“I already do that anyway,” he’d said. 

He trusted Scotty to call for help if anything hinky started going on. With a nurse mom and an FBI dad, he was the right kind of paranoid, not that anyone would think to look at him. 

So that freed Stiles up for some recon missions. Some snoopage and beeswax butting, as it were.

He started with watching. 

Utilizing the same notebook he’d used to keep track of the Hales, Stiles took down everything. What the man said when Stiles conveniently had to tie his shoes outside the staff office, what he wore, what he drove including license plate number and make and model and what he could see through the windows when he skipped a class to poke around. Which included a pile of blankets in the back that didn’t look… right. 

Looked like those tarps in Kate’s truck, when he’d last seen her. 

Smears of eviiiiil, Stiles decided, and left it alone. 

This time Stiles included that weird stuff apparently only he could see. Like how the ugly red brown flaky stains on Walthers hands extended up a few inches past his wrists before it began to get streaky and thin. Or that when he pulled out a perfectly ordinary looking pocketknife to cut some netting for the soccer goal it was crusty and awful looking but no one comment on it. 

Stiles had three days of uninterrupted surveillance before Cora put her yellow running shoe clad foot down. 

“Why are you stalking the new guy?”

Behind her Scott wasn’t pretending to try and stop her, but Stiles could tell he was more than happy to let her do the dirty work. Or the confronting, in this case. Stiles was the one doing dirty work. As usual. 

Snapping his notebook closed and ignoring the way Cora was clearly trying to catch a glimpse of what he’d written, Stiles tucked it in his back pocket and then sat down. For security reasons. 

“What’re you talking about now?”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about, butthead. You’re watching the new guy and being creepy. Whats going on?” Her eyes narrowed, lips thinned. The skin around her eyes and mouth were pale, making freckles out like flicks of mud. “Did he do something to you?”

Scotts eyes snapped to Stiles and widened before going horribly blank. Shit.

Lunging to his feet, Stiles shouldered Cora out of the way, slinging an arm around Scotts shoulder and making it as heavy as possible. Tucking his head down temple to temple with Scott, he glared at Cora. “Go away.”

“No, answer m—“

“Get the fuck away,” Stiles snarled, teeth bared and skin burning and Scott right next to him. 

Cora went away. 

“Did he hit you?” Scott asked. 

“Nah. Scotty, c’mon, he’s been here for a few days, I haven’t even said a word to him.” Scott didn’t say anything and didn’t move. Sighing, Stiles pressed down until they were both sitting side by side on the cement walkway by the sports field. 

Stiles knew where he was looking. Walther was across the field and Scotts eyes were laser focused.

“Scotty. I swear, he hasn’t hit me. Or any other kid here.” He thumped his head against the side of Scotts, closing his eyes and breathing in the scent of the same all purpose shampoo Melissa used. “I promise, nothing happened.”

Scott let out the breath he’d been holding in a long exhale that got his arms and shoulders shuddering under Stiles grip, had him melting into his side. Stiles scrubbed his hand through his hair and grit his teeth. 

Melissa never knew because Scotty never said. Stiles hadn’t known either. Hadn’t even suspected, hadn’t noticed, not with his mom dying by degrees in front of him. He should have noticed anyway. 

As far as Melissa knew her husband had hit Scotty once and only once, the catalyst for kicking the bastard to the curb. Several months after while they were tucked din sleeping bags, marathoning Jurassic Park, Scott had whispered that he didn’t remember his dad ever not hitting him. 

Not hard, he said. Not often, he said while he was shaking and hugging a popcorn bowl and refusing to meet Stiles eye. 

If the guy had still been in city limits, Stiles would have taken care of the problem that night. Not like a ten year old could be charged for murder, right?

As it was Scotty was better but big men with big smiles and big hands were always gonna be a touchy subject. That was okay. Stiles would take care of them too, if it came down to it. 

“Remember what I told you? I promised, nothing like that was gonna happen to us. No ones gonna hit me, not more’n once.”

“You really mean it? That— that guy? He didn’t hurt you?”

Stiles looked across the grass, squinted against the sun. Walther was talking to the soccer kids, grinning and laughing and yeah, Stiles could kind of see why Scott would freak out. It hurt that he hadn’t noticed before, that their smiles were the same. That Walther looked kind of like Scotts bastard of a dad, just a little taller and a lot blonder. 

He scuffed Scotts hair harder, forcing his head down and breaking the line of sight while he snorted. 

“Yeah. I just think he’s creepy. Bad vibes, that’s it, so I’m keeping an eye on him.” When Scott turned big Bambi eyes up at him Stiles groaned (but it was nice to them again, not those dead brown eyes from only minutes ago that looked wrong and awful in his best friends face). “I know, I know, I’ll be careful. No one’ll hit me. Scouts honor.”

“You got us both kicked out of boy scouts,” Scott mumbled, but Stiles could see him packing up all the shit and shoving it down. That was okay. If Scott could forget that was just fine, because Stiles would be there to remember it for him. 

“Yeah, but I kept the handbook.”

Cora was way off at the end of the walkway, back to them and shoulders tense as she tapped away at her cellphone. Scott was leaning against his shoulder and Stiles didn’t bother calling her back. She might be a friend now, and he would have her back even if it killed him, but she wasn’t Scotty. 

Eventually she wandered back on her own and Scott straightened up, back to his old self again.

“I’m going out for ice cream after school,” Cora declared loftily, arms crossed and foot tapping restlessly. Stiles stabbed at with the pen, laughing at her startled sidestep. “You're an idiot. Do that again and I’ll break it.”

“Guys, come on,” Scott muttered.

“Its fine, its fine, its how I show my love.” Stiles grinned as brightly and patted the ground beside him. “Sit down and keep bragging about the ice cream.”

“Ugh, I hate you.” But she sat down anyway. “What I tried to say was I’m going out for ice cream and do you two idiots want to come. You can use my phone to call your parents.”

Scott perked immediately. Stiles just squinted suspiciously. Cora didn’t blink as she stared blankly back over Scotts head, who was blissfully ignoring them as had become his habit. 

Sometimes Stiles was a little weirded out by how quickly Cora had slithered into their friend group. Mostly he just tried not to think about it. 

“Mom said its okay!” Scott said happily. He didn’t bother handing the phone to Stiles.

The bell rang and they split off, Stiles deliberately not looking back at Walther as he went to class. He’d have to be more careful watching him. 

“Well shit,” Stiles muttered, slumping as he pushed his bike towards the parking lot. 

Peter Hale waved broadly, leaning against a familiar SUV and grinning. Just like last time Stiles had the misfortune to meet him he was maintaining aggressive eye contact, too white teeth blinding. 

Werewolf or not, Peter was the Hale Stiles was most uninterested in hanging around. 

“Long time no see, kiddo.”

“That was on purpose. I suppose it was too much to hope such a lucky streak would continue.” Stiles sighed heavily. 

Shoving by, Cora threw her backpack through the open back window and yanked open the door.

“Could you guys, like, not flex your assholery?” 

“Cora, darling, I missed you too!” Peter cooed and patted her hair, the move so condescending it flipped all the way around to sincere. Cora glared at him for a moment, Stiles wondered if he was about to witness justifiable homicide. “How was school?”

“Better than dealing with you.”

“A real zinger there, kiddo.” Peter laughed when she slammed the door and pointedly rolled up the window. “I know I’m your favorite!”

The window rolled back down. “Yes.” 

It went back up. 

Peters grin looked a little less like it could tear out his throat now, Stiles noted. He nodded to the bike. “Need help getting that in the back?”

Stiles scoffed. “No.”

But alright, the SUV was kind of tall and Stiles was only a small child, it was understandable! The bastard still laughed at him when he had to help. 

At least Stiles got to ride shotgun again, which was cool until he realized that it would take at least half an hour for Scott to get dropped off. And no way he was letting Peter Hale into Melissa’s house, even though Stiles had a key. 

Resting his head tragically against the back of the seat and staring out the window, Stiles prepared for the interrogation. 

“So, you still been hanging out in parks after hours?” Peter asked.

“Not anymore. I got harassed by some creepy old dude so I’m giving up that perfectly innocent and legal pastime.”

Peter snorted. The blooping chiming sounds of Tetris came from behind them. 

“Good. Bad things can happen to people after dark even when they're doing perfectly innocent and legal things.”

“Oh my God!” Stiles snapped, hands flailing as he struggled with the seatbelt in order to turn and glare at the man. “You know how creepy that is! I know you know how creepy that is!”

“Why do you think he does it?” Cora mumbled and wedged her knee against the back of his seat as she slumped. It was more comforting than Stiles was, well, comfortable with. 

“Do you want to get shot or something? Because all that pointless cartoon villain menacing is how you get shot, I guarantee it.”

“Now I think that right there is more of threat than anything I’ve said,” Peter said reasonably. “Don’t you agree Cora?”

“You deserve to be shot,” she muttered back.”

Peter frowned. “The teenage angst fest is really starting prematurely with you, isn’t it?”

She kicked the back of his seat. Lightly, though. Stiles had seen her kicking a pigskin and it was a thing of terrifying beauty. 

“Anyway. Stiles wasn’t it?”

“Thats me,” Stiles said warily and shoved his shoulder against the door, curling sideways in the seat to stare at the man. Werewolf. Wolf man. Whatever. 

The notebook in his pocket felt very heavy. He should have torn out the Hale section.

“Talia says hi, by the way.” 

“Great, yeah. Tell her hi back, I guess.”

“Maybe its just me,” Peter mused sighingly. “Maybe I just bring out the preteen-angst in people.”

In a beautiful and rare moment of solidarity, Stiles and Cora met each others gaze and grimaced in tandem. 

The SUV pulled smoothly out into the street and Stiles looked out the window, avoiding all the reflective surfaces that proved Peter was still watching him. The guy was not subtle, but maybe that was the point? Was he trying to intimidate Stiles? It worked, of course, but it didn’t matter. Stiles could be intimidated and still be a full on little shit without hesitation. Just the way he was wired. 

“You all recovered from your little impromptu visit to the doctors?”

“Yep,” Stiles said with withering finality. Of course, Peter proceeded anyway, unwithered. 

“Thats good. No complications, no medications, just a clean bill of health.”

Stiles snapped. “I forgot to eat. Is that a crime, now? Am I really the most interesting thing you can gossip about over dinner?” 

“Yeah, kind of,” Cora muttered. Stiles groaned. 

“This is harassment. I am being harassed.”

“But you’ll be getting ice cream out if, so its not that bad.”

“Not everything can be smoothed over with ice cream, Cora!” Stiles snarled. 

She shrugged. 

Peter parked on the street in front of Scotts house and Stiles rolled out the door before the engine even rumbled off, stomping through soggy leaf litter to sit on the front lawn. He still wasn’t going to let anyone into the house, but he sure wasn’t going to spend all his time in that car. 

His skin crawled and he didn’t really know why. He knew it was kind of hypocritical to be so creeped out by being so solidly on the Hales radar when he had been the one to stalk them first. Which they didn’t know, and he couldn’t decided whether that made their weird interest better or worse. 

Unsurprisingly, he was followed. 

Stiles huffed as Peter sat next to him, stretching long, designer jean clad legs over the edge of the lawn and onto the sidewalk. The hiking boots at the end of them were probably more expensive than Stiles entire wardrobe. 

“I’m sorry.”

Stiles rolled an eye to glare at the man. “For what?”

“For whatever we’ve done to make you so uncomfortable. And, personally, for scaring you in the park.”

“I wasn’t scared,” Stiles mutter in knee-jerk reaction. As for the other part of the apology…

It just sucked, being watched and talked about and just thought about without his knowledge. Even if it were a different family, one he wasn’t still sort of worried about disappearing him off the map, he still would be weirded out. 

Because it was weird, right? People just didn’t waste time on thinking about Stiles, he didn’t need people to think about him and he didn’t like it. Since his mom got sick no one wanted to think about any of them because it was depressing as shit, and when she died people only thought about them long enough to bring over a conciliatory casserole before forgetting about them again. 

He didn’t like people seeing him. 

“Its creepy. Why are you guys even care?”

“About what? You?” Peter leaned back on his hands, frowning thoughtfully skywards. He looked like a douchebag on a photoshoot. All he needed was a gentle breeze and more flattering lighting. 

“YEs, about me.” His voice cracked and he didn’t even care. “I don’t even know you people.”

“You know Cora. And Talia.”

“Talia is literally just an acquaintance. And an adult.”

“Aw, come now.” Peter smirked. “She’ll be devastated to hear that.”

“Was she devastated when she heard about Santa?”

Peter snorted. “See? This is why we care. You’re an interesting young man. And considering my opinion on humanity in general and children in particular, that is a high compliment.”

“I’d rather not be complimented by some cartoon villain wannabe,” Stiles grumbled. 

The hand on his head was shocking and Stiles flinched hard enough to pull a muscle before he froze. He turned slowly to stare at Peter, who was waiting for eye contact, apparently, because as soon as he did, the hand on his hand scrubbed hard enough to rock him back and forth. 

“You’re a little asshole, Stiles, but that’s not going to change the fact we actually like you. Cora likes you, and you might not know it, but that counts for a whole lot.”

The bus turned the corner and Stiles rocked to his feet. His skin felt like it was breaking out in hives and he rolled his shoulders to get rid of the feeling. 

“Fine, alright. Ice cream right?”

He felt Peter looking at him, the bastard. 

“Right.”

When Scott stumbled off the bus Stiles all but sprinted over to him. Safety had never looked so sweaty and bedraggled, but he wasn’t going to complain. And Scott was perfectly content to take the front seat this time, while Stiles hunkered down in the back with the lesser evil.

The ice cream wound up being pretty good thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWs for somewhat graphic discussion of child abuse, Stiles being back on his stalker shtick, and Peter being a creep as usual.
> 
> Ah, it hurts not to post every week, but life is doing its thing and I am being crushed beneath it! I'm putting precedence on my main fic, so this one is probably going to still see a lot of gaps between updates. Sorry!
> 
> Comment is inclined and I hope you enjoyed


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWs at bottom of chapter

The kitchen wasn’t empty for once. 

Standing shoulder to hip with his his dad (because, shit, he was tall, when would Stiles get to reap the benefits of those genes?) Stiles displayed his onion chopping skills with the massive butcher knife from the block set they had never actually used. His dad was hovering, pinched faced and obviously concerned. Stiles tried not to be too dastardly and handle the knife improperly, but it was hard. 

“You know, a different one would probably be easier,” his dad offered. The beer in his hands had been there for hour an hour and was probably gross and warm. Still, it was only the second of the night so Stiles was happy enough. 

“You can cut anything with a butcher knife,” Stiles said loftily, in his Cora-at-her-snootiest tone. But he grinned and finished the last of the onions with a chop. 

“Well. You’re not technically wrong.”

“I’m not wrong at all. This is the only one I ever use.” Which was the truth. It was heavy and hard to handle and kind of dull, but it looked badass and that was all that mattered. 

His dad winced but hummed encouragingly as Stiles used the knife to scrape everything off the cutting board into a pan. “Alrighty.”

“Dad. Come on. You’re not actually old enough to sound like that.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

The past couple weeks had been suspiciously good, not counting Walther and his murder hands. His dad was home after school two days out of the week and was usually awake, Stiles had aced his last test, Scott was happy and Cora was butting out of his business for the most part. Well, they both tagged along waaaaay too much at school and were watching Walther, but that was something to worry about at another time that was not now. 

Because right now, things were good. 

“I didn’t realize you were learning to cook.”

Stiles preened. “Yep! I can make all kinds of stuff now, though my baking is still shit.”

“Language,” his dad said and passed over a spatula. 

“And I do a lot of casseroles.” Ground beef plopped into the pan on top of the onions. 

His dad was quiet for a moment. Fat and butter spit and hissed at them. Stiles frowned at him, poking the spatula at the pan. 

“You okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good. You’ve grown up a lot, huh?”

Stiles sputtered. “What? Nooo, pfft. Not.”

His dad grinned and nudged at him, rudely. “I think so. I feel so old, in comparison.”

“Don’t be dramatic.” 

“Wow. Really feeling supported and loved here, kiddo.”

Stiles shrugged and flicked the spatula grandly. “My message has been received.”

“Sure has.”

Stiles scooped the meat into a bowl and passed it over, his dad obediently carting it over to the table. Stiles watched out of the corner of his eye, feeling a little weirded out at the setup. They hadn’t sat together at the table for… years. It was strange, seeing their cups and mismatched plates and cereal bowls with shredded lettuce and tomato bits sitting there. He didn’t know whether it was going to be as nice as it was weird, but he was hoping. 

Discount americanized taco’s all set to go, Stiles stopped by the fridge for a coke and plopped into his seat, across from his dad. 

“So,” he said after a moment.

His dad smirked. “So?”

“What? Don’t mock me, I’m trying to open up a line of communication here.”

“Sorry, sorry. Hot sauce?”

Stiles accepted the offered bottle. “Thanks.”

“Hows school?”

“Good. Got an A on my history test.”

His dad raised his brows, suitably impressed. “How’d that happen?”

“They made the mistake of letting us pick out what we wanted to write about from the 1800s.”

“Ahhh,” his dad drawled. “And what did you pick?”

“Dentures made from human teeth,” Stiles said with relish. The look on the teachers face when he’d handed it over had been epic. “He had to research it to give me a grade.”

His dad sighed. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I have an intelligent child, but you should go easier on your teachers sometimes.”

Stiles shrugged and made sounds of acknowledgment around a mouthful of meat and cheese. He kept an eye on his dad as he considered; they were taking about school, it was a good oppurtunity….

“We also have some new guy,” he began casually. 

“A new kid?”

“Pfft. No. Gym teacher.”

His dad hummed, took a swallow of beer. “Thats nice.”

“I guess.” Apparently Stiles would have to try a little harder. A little more blunt force than surgical precision as it were. “Some of the kids don’t like him.”

“I’m not surprised. I know I hated my gym teacher.”

Oookay. A little blunter. “Some of the kids are scared of him. They say he’s weird.”

And that got his attention. The beer was set down with a solid click against the tabletop and Stiles pretended not to notice his dads abrupt and super intense attention. Yep. Cop AND father instincts activated. Bingo. 

“Do they?” His dad asked. “How so?”

Stiles shrugged even more. “I dunno. I don’t talk to anyone but Scott,” and sort of Cora, “Its just what some kids are saying. He does seem a little weird though.”

“I see. Whats his name?”

Stiles was good. He was the best. He was a master manipulator and he felt shitty enough to prove it. “Walther, or something.”

“Walther. Like the gun.”

“Yeah, I thought that was kind of funky too.” He paused to give it some thought. “You know, that would be kind of cool? Like, imagine if we had gun name. Like, Winchester or Glock or something.”

His dad snorted out a laugh through his nose. “Yeah, if you say so.”

“Dad! Come on, it would be cool!”

“No, no, you’re right. Stiles Uzi has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

Stiles flung a piece of shredded cheese at him but he was grinning the whole time. 

It really was nice, not to eat alone. 

Pocket knife, silver jewelry, notebook, his moms taser and mace, as many chocolate chip granola bars as he could fit into his pocket and a bottle of gatorade in the bottom of his backpack. He also had a map of the town, fifteen years out of date, but Stiles could add and subtract whatever was different. 

The Book was sitting in its by now usual spot on his bed, shedding bits of bark. Stiles groaned at it and brushed the bits to the floor, spreading an old teeshirt underneath before re-propping it back against the pillow.

“Look, we’ve talked about this. You can’t keep giving me splinters. I know, I know, you can’t help it, shedding is natural, but if I roll over into a bed of splinters one more time…” He scowled. “You’re literally a magical book. You can definitely stop this whenever you want.”

Cold, uncaring silence. 

“Fine. Be that way. But the closet is still an option and don’t think I won’t utilize it.”

And then he grudgingly admitted it was time to stop making excuses and go. 

It was late afternoon, verging on twilight, and the moon was half full and hanging in the middle of the sky. A little cold, but nothing his moms hoodie couldn’t combat. With a last look at the house, with the light of his bedroom window still on like a beacon to home in on, he kicked off on his bike, gliding down the sloped street.

Stiles had a plan. It was a nice and loose one too, easy to change on the fly. And the plan was to spend the night spying on Walther and not get caught. 

… Well, there was beauty in simplicity. Supposedly. 

So Stiles might not have a plan, but he had determination and that was all that really mattered!

Walther lived at the edge of town in the trailer park that mostly housed retirees. There were a lot of potted plants and small dogs, handicap ramps and windchimes. Stiles and Scott always hit it first during Halloween and the haul was legendary every time. He was actually a little offended Walther had invaded the place. 

Stiles left his bike behind a bush up the street and circled around the park. It was backed up against the woods and separated from it by a pretty and pretty useless decorative fence. Walther was conveniently located in a single wide at the back corner of the park. 

Stiles crept through the woods, following the perimeter of the fence. Thankfully, he had become immune to the terror of being in the wilderness in the dead of night. At least his surveillance of the Hales had been good for more than saving their lives. 

Most of trees around Beacon Hills were piney type things. Straight and tall and scratchy and definitely not the kind that could be climbed without lumberjack cleats. Stiles did not have those, which was probably a good thing considering he knew he wouldn’t use them responsibly. But around the edge of the park someone had planted a lot of ornamental trees which were leafy and full of branches and Stiles could actually climb them. Making himself comfortable in one, he settled in to wait. 

Walther’s car rolled into its spot a little while later and Stiles watched the riveting tableau of the man shuttling groceries into the trailer. It was actually quite a lot of groceries, once he thought about. Three whole cases of beer and a massive stack of pizza boxes. 

Slowly it dawned on Stiles that Walther was expecting company. 

Shit, he thought, panicking. Shit! He wasn’t mentally prepared for it. It had taken weeks of surveillance to get anything in regards to that Hales and then the very first night of staking out Walther and something interesting was happening? He hadn’t done anything to warrant such a karmic blessing, which made it deeply, deeply suspicious.

Paranoia keeping his blood pumping nice and warm, Stiles hunkered down and squinted through the branches. 

Two hours and twenty-one minutes later a grey van rolled to a stop behind Walthers car. 

Its was clearly an ominous vehicle. It looked sinister, from its tinted windows to its matte black hubcaps. The people that exited it were even more ominous. 

It was like watching a clown-car of murder. Seven people in leather or demin jackets, hands streaked a familiar dirty red. The two women led the way, their hair caught up in tight ponytails, one of them carrying a long guitar case that was obviously not the instrument it was supposed to be. 

Walther opened the door and ushered them in, taking a long look around the park. Stiles Froze in his tree and held his breath when he mans eyes passed over the fence line. 

But apparently nothing seemed out of place because Walther turned back to go in, handing a can of beer to the lone man that remained on the postage stamp porch. A guard, Stiles thought bitterly, watching the man take a long pull and then light up a cigarette, the glow making his hands seem even redder. 

Now. Stiles was aware that he was only a kid and alone and also really not the stealthiest guy around. But as the minutes ticked on and the silhouettes of people inside the trailer stopped moving and apparently sat around a table, he realized if he wanted to get anything out of this he would have to get a little closer, small yappy trailer park dogs and clearly murderous guard not-with-standing. 

He debated leaving his kind of bulky backpack behind, but in the event he was discovered and had to haul ass, he would prefer not leave evidence or valuables behind. Though maybe he should leave a note or a clue or something, in case he was horrifically murdered and disposed of in a gruesome manner….

Nawh. He’d probably be fine. 

Shimmying down from the tree he made his stealthy, slithery way to the fence and eased over. It only creaked a little bit, and the gravel interior border crunched too softly to really matter. 

The side of the trailer closest to the fence had a bunch of trash cans lines up the side. Plastic ones, thankfully, and he clambered on the close lid of the one nearest the living room window. Stiles wrinkled his nose at the smell of rotten vegetables and really old Chinese food and spread his legs and arms wide to brace himself at the edges of the lid, so he didn’t collapse it and fall into the stench filled mire within. 

The windows were closed and the blinds lowered, so Stiles didn’t think they would see him at all. Head banging until his hood fell back, he scooted closer and press his ear against the window. 

Being the most familiar, Walthers was the only voice Stiles could make out clearly. The rest were a confused mumbled of half formed words. 

There was a single bent blind, just a few inches above where Stiles could look through while comfortably without straining. 

Walther sat at a round folding table, gray plastic top scratched and dented and mostly covered with open pizza containers and handguns. His six guests (minus poor old murder-guard, smoking his woes away) were all squashed uncomfortably together, elbows and shoulders all rammed together. 

“—not my fault,” Walther was saying grumpily, gesturing with his can of Bud Lite. “She won’t even talk to me. Swear she’s suspicious, the little bitch.”

A woman across the table scowled. It was much easier to understand what was being said when he could see faces. “We hired you because it wouldn’t arouse suspicion. You contractors are all the same; pussies.”

“Fuck off,” Walther snapped. “Its not like I have any backup there. You can take your judgement and shove it up a wolfs ass.”

And he flicked up a his finger a rude gesture with such panache Stiles almost didn’t hate him. Almost. 

“Settle down, settle down,” an older man drawled. He sat with more space for his elbows than anyone else, which definitely meant he was the bigshot of the group. Stiles stared uneasily at his hands as they folded lightly on the tabletop. Pure red tinted filth, disappearing right up the sleeves of his corduroy jacket. Behind the wire rim glasses that made him look like some comfy professor his eyes were half lidded and lazy and crusted with red. 

Kates old man was the only person Stiles had seen with more death staining him. 

“He’s worthless,” the lady snapped. The other woman sitting next to her was scrolling through her phone, head down and mouth full of pizza. “Are we just going to keep paying him without results? This entire mess has been a net loss.”

Walther slammed his beer down. “I’ve barely even had an opportunity to start.”

“Settle,” the old man snapped. 

Grudgingly, the two did. 

“The whole pack is bound to be wary,” the man said bluntly. “They wary, closing ranks. Getting a foothold is going to be tough and time consuming. All the west cost packs are alerted now and if we go in guns blazes with full force, even if we wipe this one out, all the others will be at our throats. Its a waiting game now.”

“Its a waste. We should cut our losses and move on,” the woman said.

There was a long moment of tense quiet, eyes raising to stare at her. Even the disinterested phone scrollers and pizza eaters among the group paused to look at her, though it took a while for her to realize. 

“They killed half a squad. We had to cull a few of our own men.” This time it was another man, tall and wide and bushy as a lumberjack. The roundness of his eyes gave him weird, sorta unhinged vibe and Stiles swallowed heavily. “You don’t know what its like, puttin’ silver in your own brothers. You're nothing but a glorified accountant and don’t understand the first thing about this business.”

The professor nodded. “And they’re looking for us. Looking for evidence to bring to the council, to the police, to anyone that could cause problems. This is not a problem that we can afford to set aside until later.”

“Especially with that beast loving bitch Betsana putting all her resources to finding us,” the phone scrolling woman pointed out blandly. “FBI has a long reach and lot of time to spare for their darlings.”

“How’re things on that end?” The professor asked.

The scroller shrugged and tucked a hank of frizzy red hair behind one ear. “Same old, same old. Holding steady for now. The wolves have their agents and we have ours.” She snorted and scrolled with a longer, dramatic sweep of her thumb, bobbing a sideways nod at the woman beside her. “As long as we pay.”

“Keep on top of it, then.”

She performed a limp salute. “Aye, aye, sir.”

“And Walther.” The professor reclasped his hands and leaned attentively forward.”You just do what you have to. This is your area of expertise, after all.”

What did that even mean? Stiles wondered. Outside contractors and areas of expertise and agents in the FBI. An uncomfortable shive tickled down his back. It made it sound like all this was much more organized than he’d thought. Scarily organized. Not just a weird little gang of people with guns and a determination to kill werewolves.   
Chewing hard on his cheek, Stiles squinted through the window, trying to pick out distinguishing characteristics. He was awful at describing people and remembering names.

Still. All those hours when he and his dad had been sitting in parking lots or on mall benches waiting for his mom, with his dad teaching him cop tricks like how to observe and catalogue people and position and how to pick out a few intensifying markers were not going to go to waste!

He still wished he wasn’t balancing on garbage cans and could jot it all down in his notebook though. 

Half an hour ticked by, Stiles watching carefully as they cleared the table and brought out maps and a laptop. Most of what they were talking about flew right over his head. At one point the guard came in from the porch to grab a box of pizza before being banished outside again. Poor little grunt. 

It was while he was still waiting for things to get interesting again that things went wrong. 

Balancing in a half squatting position on a precarious perch without practice was probably too ambitious for the likes of him. He tripped over his own shoelaces routinely, so high level spy stuff like that was way out of his league. As his calf abruptly cramped horrible and sent him rocking noisily as he flailed for balance, he took a split second to marvel that he had lasted so long. 

He tumbled back onto the hard gravel of the ground as the window shattered with multiple odd little pops.

If it wasn’t suppressed gunfire he would eat his shoe. 

Bits of gravel caught painfully under his nails as he scrambled upright, lurching as quickly as his leg could take him. Which turned out to be pretty darned fast when he heard the sound of the window being kicked out and multiple bodies thudding outside and knocking the trash over. 

The fence was close but he’d be in full view and no way was he going to do that. So he dodged sideways, ducking around the corner of a lavender painted trailer with lots of flower boxes full of dead plants and banged on the side as he went. 

Sure enough, a whole host of high pitched barking started up. Seemed the old lady (full sized candy bars but with a strange habit of supplementing them with granola bars) still had her menagerie. 

All around the park lights were turning on, more dogs barking by the minute. Stiles raced behind another trailer, standard white, and dropped down to scrambled through a whole in the flimsy white trellis surrounding the bottom. The ground was slimy with algae and moss, and he grimaced the whole way as he snaked between jacks and pipes and cinderblock supports. 

He could hear all the raised voices and chaos, the park all lit up now. He wriggled all the way to the front of the trailer, peering through the trellis and old potted plants. 

Retirees were milling around the road and on porches, dressed in slippers and robes. Some of them were carrying makeshift weaponry like skillets or umbrellas. 

“Its a robber!” One woman was shouting decisively, with more glee than alarm as she clutched a phone in a fuzzy pink case. “Its definitely a robber!”

“Call the police!” Another woman demanded as she clung to her husbands arm, who was still half asleep and swaying in place as he yawned.

“I already did,” the fuzzy phone lady said smugly. 

Stiles didn’t pay much attention to them. He was too busy watching Walther and his crew slowly retreating to his end of the park, grouped tight together and pinch faced as they went. Within a few minutes, the van drove by and vanished through the park gate. 

Stiles dropped his forehead into the slime and breathed out shakily. That had been a closer shave than a prepubescent boy should ever have to deal with, and he regretted his life choices. 

He waited until a patrol car rolled into the park and was converged upon by a herd of retirees before making his way out from under the trailer. His whole body was gross and smelly and his skin felt like it was going to crawl off his bones as he tiptoed his way to the fence and climbed over. 

All the way home he was looking over his shoulder, waiting for a big grey van to pulled up beside him or run him down in the road. 

Back home he crawled into the empty quiet of the house and slunk into the laundry room, throwing his clothes directly in the washer with probably inadvisable amount of soap before taking the longest shower of his short existence. 

Clean and still vibrating with close call shakiness, sat with his back to the wall and new notebook and starting writing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWs for a child in danger, drinking, murderers talking about murder, gunfire and mentions of people killing their own people. 
> 
> I am back! Sorry for the wait, though there will probably still be big gaps between updates. I have a twitter now, same handle as here, and I will post whether or not a chapter is updating. I will probably never be on there otherwise, though, so...
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed. Comment if inclined and have a good week


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWs at bottom of chapter

The Maybe Murder Board had a few new additions. 

A whole slew of post-its with the descriptions of the newest suspects, the vans license plate and what guns he could recognize. A hand scrawled map of the park, with various hidden holes outlined in red with orange lines depicting the best routes to get to them in a hurry. He’d managed to get a photo of Walther, pinned up and defaced with a curly mustache and angry eyebrows. 

Spinning a sparkle gel pen in his hand, round and round and round, Stiles frowned. 

A week since he was run out of the park and things weren’t going anywhere quick. Or at least it hadn’t been until that morning, when Cora came in with grey tipped fingers and fading brown hair. 

He almost didn’t notice, at first glance. Half asleep and dragging as he was, more preoccupied with trying to crush Scott beneath his moaning, groaning, complaining weight, he didn’t even lift his head when Cora fell into step beside them. And when Cora and Scott starting talking about the previous weeks pop quiz in math and how unfair it was to spring on them, Stiles had tuned them out and let them take over the steering component of his locomotive abilities, elbowing or hip checking him around corners. 

“Seriously, I know you’re not a morning kind of dude, but this is a little too zombie even for you,” Cora had huffed and dug the talon-like sharpness of her elbow into his ribs. 

“Up all night til the sun,” Stiles had sung in a listless monotone. 

“Don’t even finished that,” she’d grumbled and then she’d thrown an arm around his shoulders and her ashy fingertips had swung right in front of his face. 

Needless to say his high pitched and instinctive freakout had caused some comments. From several quarters. 

And so here he sat, exhausted from a long day of trying to prove he wasn’t freaking out when he definitely was, staring at the Maybe Murder Board and resisting the urge to deface Walther further. 

Scooping another spoonful of smooth peanut butter from the jar bracketed in his lap, Stiles glared at the mans ugly/handsome face and tried to focus on it rather than the memory of Cora’s color seeping slowly away.

It was weird! It was weird and awful and somehow even worse than he would have expected. She’d never been one of the Hales that went grey, after all. And logically he knew that didn’t mean she was some sort of super wolf that could evade all harm, but come on! He’d already done this once. And God, but he didn’t want to do it again. 

Another scoop of peanut butter that he smooshed against the roof of his mouth and Stiles reluctantly turned his attention to the book propped against his knee. 

As an ally it was admittedly unreliable. First and foremost because it was a chaotic and possibly evil book full of creepy knowledge that it was refusing to share. But also because it lacked useful things like legs and thumbs and the ability to speak. 

Still. Unless he was willing to out himself to a bunch of possibly homicidal creatures of the lunar kind then the Book was all he had. 

Logically he should just step back now. He’d already done his due diligence and if the Hales weren’t competent enough to stay alive after he’d already done the heavy lifting once, then they deserved whatever they got. Stiles had already broken his promises once, and doing it all over again with twice as much risk was the sort of thing his mother would have thwapped him for, no excuses accepted.

Stiles tangled fingers through his hair and hunched over the jar, smearing the front of his shirt with peanut goo and not giving a shit. 

“Crap, crap, shit-damnit and fuuuuuuck…..”

Cora was an asshole. So was Stiles. Which was probably why they got along so well, with Scott there to keep them from melting the world with their combined acidity. And even if they didn’t get along, he didn’t know whether he could just… ignore her eminent death/murder.

Alright, fine, he knew he couldn’t. 

So he had to figure out how to keep a Hale from being murdered. Again. 

  
Cora was only slighter grayer the next day, the end of her high ponytail like wisps of smoke. Stiles scowled at her the second she strolled into view, noisily sucking the dregs of apple juice from a cardboard box and scanning the crowded parking lot until she saw Stiles. Then she scowled back, crumpled the box in her first and hustled through the crowded like an enraged rhino on a mission of violence. 

“You,” she barked, hooking a hand through the strap of his backpack and hauling him behind her as she kept walking. By now the kids around them were aware of Cora and her apparent mission and hurried out of her path. 

“C’mon,” Stiles whined, staring at the ceiling so he didn’t have to see her grey fingertips. “Class is going to start soon. I don’t know about you, but I come to this fine institute to learn, not be accosted by thugs.”

“Oh, shut up. If you’re going to sneak out of school to avoid me, then you can bet your butt that I’ll be cornering you the next day.”

They passed Scott, who blinked at them and then waved a little uncertainly. “Hey Stiles.”

“Morning, Scotty.” Stiles waved as he was dragged around a corner and lost sight of his bud. 

Which, you know, was probably for the best, considering this had the potential to suck, but it sure would have been nice to have backup. 

Cora kicked open the door to the boys bathroom and dragged him inside. She didn’t even bother checking the stalls (probably because she had a fancy nose that would sniff out any intruders, though if that was the case Stiles could only feel sorry for her because the one place you didn’t want fancy olfactory’s was the friggin boys bathroom). She just planted herself in front of the door, crossed her arms and glared from beneath her angry eyebrows. 

“You’re going to tell me what the heck you were freaking out about yesterday.” When Stiles opened his mouth to answer, she raised a hand. “And don’t tell me that you’re always freaking out. I know that already, but yesterday wasn't your regular freaking out.”

“Look, its not really any of your business,” he sneered. 

“It is when you’re scared of me!” She snapped and then closed her mouth hard enough he could hear her teeth click. 

Stiles stared at her. Blinked, hummed confusedly, blinked again. “No? I’m not scared of you.”

She frowned, eyebrows scrunching together. Stiles couldn’t tell whether it was from anger or confusion. “Yes you are. You look like you’ve seen a ghost every time you look at me, if you even do it all.” 

Stiles shrugged. “Dude, no, not really. You’re not, like, super scary. You’re shorter than me.”

She jolted as if he’d pinched her and puffed up like a bird. A very intimidating bird, like a cassowary or goose or something. “And so?"

“Nothing! Nothing.”

Her eyes narrowed further and she crossed her arms tighter, leaning in close. “Don’t make me arm wrestle you.”

“Oh God no,” Stiles said. He did not want that. Never, ever again.

“Good.” Looking him up and down again, she grabbed his shoulders, spun him around and shoved him back out the bathroom door and into the hallway. 

And other than avoiding looking at her faded fingertips and trying not to emit murder vibes every time he caught a glimpse of Walther, it was a pretty chill day.

Or at least, for the first half. 

They split to their respective classrooms, Scott and Cora together, and Stiles alone. 

Hands tucked in his pockets, Stiles tipped his head back and watched the ceiling tiles slide along as he walked. Around him the kids in his class kept their distance, which was good enough for him considering otherwise he would have walked into someone already. Honestly though? He wouldn't have expected this apparent terror from his breakdown via smack-down to last so long. It was going on two weeks and still no one would meet his eyes. 

After Jackson came back Stiles had been expecting the harassment to begin anew. Jackson could recruit anyone for any cause he wanted at any time. But Jackson had been…

Well. 

Dropping into his seat at the back of the classroom, Stiles frowned at the back of Jacksons blond head.

Jackson had never been quiet in all the years Stiles was forced to suffer his presence, which was basically from diaper years to now. They were sorta similar in that way, though Stiles like to think his own yapping was more intelligent, if not as charming. 

He watched as Jackson rolled his pencil (a boring old wood one, like, who used that when mechanical ones existed and had parents who would definitely shell out the cash for them) from one side of his desk to the other. Watched as he shrugged off the and turned a cold shoulder to the kids that tried to greet him. Even Lydia, in her pink jean jacket and twin braids got nothing more than a grunt, which she took with grace before gliding away again. 

Ah, Lydia. It was always a pleasure to watch her floating through the room like a pastel colored shark in a puddle of guppies. 

But! He had more important things to do at the moment than try to figure out just how sharp her teeth really were. And Jackson, well… if this new behavior was a sign of some weakness then Stiles might just be able to leverage some use out the guy for once in their sorry lives. 

He waited until lunch, which Jackson ducked away for almost before the first syllable of the teachers dismissal. He was already halfway down the hallway before Stiles managed to get out the door and he was forced to run to catch up. 

Jackson kept hustling away, turning corners with military sharp precision and not slowing even when whole herds of children were in his way. They got out of it soon enough, but unfortunately the gap was always closed by the time Stiles got there. 

Which, rude. He was definitely just as intimidating as Jackson. Just, like, in a stealthy way. 

So when he finally caught up, he was out of breath and a little annoyed. Just a smidge. 

Jackson was sitting out in the front of the school on one of the low little walls the served as an ineffective funnel towards the front door. He was staring out over the parking lot, blond hair fluffing around with the breeze, eating what was obviously a lovingly handcrafted lunch with actual legitimate vegetables. Stiles’ face screwed itself up in some way and he squinted at the guy; some people just had all the luck. 

Shaking some of the pent up energy out of his hands and kicking his feet for good measure, Stiles sauntered over. 

“Yo, Jackson!”

Ah, there it was. The ever familiar, Stillinski specific grimace that had opened ever one of the interactions since kindergarten. Jackson sighed heavily and dropped a piece of cheesy broccoli back into his Tupperware bowl. 

“What do you want now?”

A little listless, Stiles noted, but maybe that was a good thing considering his rapidly forming New Plan. 

Hopping into the wall and pretending that the cold of it didn’t immediately make him want to hurl his unpadded butt immediately back off, he hooked an arm over Jacksons shoulder. 

“Aw, c’mon. Can’t I just want to say hi?”

Jackson peered at the hand dangling off his shoulder with a pinched face and then shrugged it off. “Have you ever bothered to ‘just say hi’ to anyone but Scott? No. So what do you want?”

Well fine, Stiles thought. Its not like he needed to play nice to get what he wanted anyway. Hopefully. Considering playing nice wouldn’t work with anyone but most especially not with Jackson. 

“Okay, yeah, fair. I need a favor.”

That got some surprise, which Stiles didn’t really understand. What did Jackson think he wanted? To kick his ass again.

Wel…. Yeah, he could understand that actually. 

Jackson frowned at him and Stiles just beamed as hard as he could.

“What favor? Not that I’m going to do it.” With a hint of his previous, more familiar swagger, Jackson leaned back on his hands and lifted an eyebrow. “I’m curious.”

Stiles valiantly swallowed back. Dad joke. It nearly choked him. 

“Well, see, before I tell you I’m going to need some assurances that you won’t go spreading it around.” Channeling every mafia don from every cheesy mob movie he’d ever binged, he held out a hand solemnly. “Pinky promise you won’t tell.”

Jackson slapped his hand back down, nearly crunching his poor proffered pinky like a twig. 

“Ow!”

“Just tell me, or ask me, or whatever.”

Okay, fine, geez. No need for violence.”

Jackson glared. “I don’t want you hear that from you.”

Stiles winced. “Yeah. Fair.” Clearing his throat he lounged aggressively back and stared at the sky. “I have a problem. Its name is Walther.”

Jackson blinked at him. He looked kind of like a cow, but one of those fancy ones that were trotted out by the 4H kids during the county fair. With the caramel colored fur and obscenely long eyelashes. 

“The gym teacher?”

“Yep,” Stiles popped and nodded for good measure. And because the motion made the omnipresent headache he’d been suffering under for the past week wobble, he just kept nodded, switching it around to side to side every few seconds. “The dude has got to go. He’s bad news and dangerous. And since your mom is like, the queen of the PTA, you could help me with that.”

“Why?”

Stiles groaned and flopped sideways on the wall. It was just barely wide enough for him to lay down on, though with how cold it was it was hardly worth the effort. “Do you have to know?”

There was a long moment of silence. Then the click of the Tupperware being set down on the cinderblocks. 

“Uh. Stiles?”

“Mmhmm?” He cracked an eye open to see Jackson looking even more constipated and sour than usual.

“Did he like… um. Did he do anything to you?”

“What? No!!” Groaning, Stiles threw his arm over his face, blotting out the blue sky and Jacksons stupid, pretty-cow face. Unfortunately, it looked like if he was going to get anything other than a worse headache out of this interaction, he’d need to give Jackson a reason. And the only one he could think of was the truth. Or, truth adjacent, whatever. 

“Look. He’d just bad news, okay? I think he’d in some kind of— of gang or something. Theres guns in his car. And he’s been actin’ kind of shady with the girls, especially Cora,” or only Cora, but eh. “My dad doesn’t think its anything” sorry Dad, “but I know what I’m talking about. I swear!”

Scrambling back upright, Stiles made eye contact a little too aggressively, if Jackson Lurching back was any indication. “So, I need your help. Just, say some stuff to your mom, drop a few hints. Heck, out right tell her the dudes got to go, I don’t care.”

Jackson chewed on his lips and stared into the distance, arms crossed and ignoring Stiles all but vibrating beside him. This was one of the many reasons Stiles didn’t like asking other people (barring Scotty of course) for help; it took foooor eeeveeer for them to make a decision. 

“I don’t think she’d listen to me. Not right,” Jackson eventually admitted, quietly, under his breath, like it was embarrassing or something. Heck, maybe for him it was. There was no one more spoiled than Jackson Whittemore.

“Why not?”

Now Jackson finally scowled at him with the familiar venom that Stiles was absolutely not happy to see again. Not at all, shut up. 

“Because of you, you idiot! Do you have any idea what kind of trouble I got in because of you? I’m in therapy now! My mom made me watch one of the harassment videos from her work!”

“Huh.” Stiles blinked. So, the therapy thing was legit. He finger gunned awkwardly. “I thought that was just a rumor, but you know what, you probably needed it.” When Jackson puffed up in preparation for yelling, Stiles let a little echo of the blind rage he’d felt the last time they’d so much as interacted color his tone. “Dude, you literally said to my face that my mom killed herself because of me. Thats not okay.”

Shockingly, he didn’t argue. Just kind of… deflated. 

“Yeah. I know.” A long moment of grimacing silence and then, quietly, “Sorry.”

Stiles resisted they urge to check the horizon for stampeding apocalyptic horsemen and swallowed. True, Danny had made him apologize once, but there was no Danny here now. “Oh. Uh, apology accepted? Not gonna lie, kicking your butt was pretty much good enough for me, but I appreciate the personal growth and stuff. Keep up the good work?”

“Don’t push it,” Jackson snapped and dragged his Tupperware back into his lap. Stuffing his mouth he spoke around his jealousy inspiring lunch. “So, why should I help you? What’s in it for me?”

Stiles shrugged sheepishly. “Fulfilling your civic responsibilities?” 

“Nice try. But I don’t even know if you’re telling the truth.”

Rude, Stiles thought. But accurate. Jackson kept going. 

“And I’m definitely not lying. My mom is scrutinizing everything now. No way will she just take my word for it without proof, not anytime soon at least.” He rolled his eyes sideways to glare from the corners of them at Stiles, cheek unattractive lumpy as he chewed. “So. Do you have any? Proof, that is.”

Shit. “Not so much.”

“S’what I thought. Idiot.”

That stung a little more than Stiles would have expected considering it came from Jackson of all people, the person who he was least interested in having respect from. “Hey, you’re welcome to find some yourself.”

Jackson grunted. Moving decisively, he snapped the lid back on his container, shoving it into his backpack and slung it over his shoulder as he stood to loom over Stiles. Who valiantly and maturely resisted the urge to kick him right in the kneecaps.

“Alright. Heres the deal. I’ll help you with the creepy PE instructor problem and in return you’ll come over for a lunch or a playdate or whatever, show my mom we’re all buddy-buddy and alls forgiven. Fair?”

Stiles grimaced, mind an endless train of Ew at the thought off buddy-buddying with Jackson. But it only took the memory of Cora turning to ash in slow-mo for him to acknowledge it was worth the sacrifice. He stuck out his hand. 

“Deal.” He said. 

“Deal.” Jackson echoed. 

Still. Just to make his lack of enthusiasm at the prospect clear, Stiles made extra-certain-sure that it was limpest, most unpleasant handshake every experienced by man or boy. 

He still, after all, had standards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWs for... not much really. Pretty bland chapter. Allusions to possibly predatory adults but its not actually whats going on. 
> 
> Uuuugh. Its been awful these past few months, but hopefully the seasonal depression will f**k off and let me be creative again. Though, as always, no guarantees about a timely update. And I want to reassure everyone that while its sure taking a while to get the content out there, I have not abandoned this work and don't plan to. And if for some reason I did, I would let you all know. 
> 
> Despite it being a bland chapter, I hope you enjoyed. Be safe, have fun and comment if so inclined!

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for the awkward pacing and any typos. Hope you enjoyed despite them


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